


Drawn In Slow Strokes

by Pink_Siamese



Series: Ultraviolence [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Background Case, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Character Study, Childhood Memories, Choking, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dark, Descent into Madness, Dreams and Nightmares, Emily Has A Past, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Fellatio, Field Kabuki, Folie a Deux, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Graphic Description of Murder, Graphic Description of Necrophilia, Home Invasion, Hybristophilia, I'm Going to Hell, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Incest, It's Dark AF, Kink Meme, Knifeplay, Mindfuck, Murder, Murder Gifts, Necrophilia, On the Run, POV Bisexual Character, POV Female Character, POV Third Person Limited, Past Drug Use, Present Tense, Rare Pairings, Recovered Memories, Stalking, This Is Some Creepy Shit Yo, Unreliable Narrator, Vaginal Sex, Watching Someone Sleep, Wordcount: 50.000-100.000, Wound Sex, references to other fandoms - Freeform, teenage sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-14
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:03:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 43
Words: 80,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_Siamese/pseuds/Pink_Siamese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A break-in, a song, a note left on the coffee table: with these things George Foyet insinuates himself into Emily’s life, triggering a long slow seductive journey deep into the darkness of her mind, her past, and her soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Red Eye Of Providence

In the dream—she knows that she’s dreaming because she hasn’t seen this stream in years and she will not think about it when she’s awake—it is colder than it was on that day, cold enough for snowflakes to spiral out of a white sky and melt at the touch of the too-warm ground: crisp air, filtered sun, fishy smell of dark mud. It snowed once while she was in Italy, but it wasn’t _here_, it wasn’t at this place.

Later on they would find the things the body had lost, wedged by the swift water into the edge of the streambed: her rings, the heart-shaped necklace with its broken clasp, the narrow silver bracelets with inlaid turquoise.

Francesca, the unmarried daughter of the man next door, young woman with a bright smile riding by the house on her bicycle every morning to go to her library job. Francesca then, a dappled shadow flying across the road, and Francesca now, in the heart of this dream: floating on her back in the cold dirty water, her long black hair full of dead leaves and her half-open eyes clotted with silt.

On the hazy weft of her dream the two memories are woven together: the day of snow close to the highlands, Francesca body floating in the stream.

It was very early in the morning, birds just starting to wake up, the light filling everything as it spilled over the misty horizon. Emily stood on the big fishing rock and looked down into the foamy water.

Francesca’s rigid legs stuck out from beneath the sodden mass of her gray skirt. She was bare from the waist up, her breasts beautiful and large and round. They floated on the gentle current, the nipples full and dark as plums. The ragged knife wound between them pale and bloodless, shedding eddying curls of translucent skin.

Against her will, Emily imagined tiny fish swimming in and out. They nibbled up the blood, her mind struggling to erase the heat from her loins.

_They aren’t sexy because she’s dead_, she tells her dreaming self. _She was beautiful when she was alive and that’s why you thought about her sometimes while drifting off to sleep, even though you were too young to know that it was okay to wonder about the girls beneath their clothes the same way you wondered about the boys. They still look alive even though she’s dead, like maybe she’s in the bathtub or something. If you ignore the stab wound_. _Like she’s been caught skinny-dipping. If you ignore the stab wound, it isn’t gross at all._

But dreaming Emily feels sick, nauseous in a hollow and echoing way that she won’t experience again until she’s at her first crime scene; dreaming Emily has a restless sea for a belly and that stubborn pubescent heat simmering up from below. Dumb animal response to dead breasts rising up through the breath trapped inside her ears.

It haunts her thoughts for weeks, nauseous because she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her; her own breasts in the mirror don’t make her feel this way, or the breasts of her classmates glimpsed in the locker room after swimming practice. Only Francesca’s breasts, dead even though they don’t look dead and Emily can’t imagine them living even though she tries, erasing the stab wound with her mind, drawing in a bathtub with her mind, erasing the skirt and the dirt, drawing in curls of steam and candlelight. She imagines Francesca’s perfume dissolving into the green scent of lake water and wants to touch those breasts, to lick away the flavor of an Italian summer.

But at the end of her fantasy, they are always cold.

The dream is full of snow. It comes down, soft, and touches Francesca’s nipples. It doesn’t melt. It clings to the dead skin and Emily feels warm. Hot, even. Her breath billows out, makes clouds of steam. Wrapped tight amidst the two memories, of snow and dead nipples, her own body heat melts back into her skin and suffocates her.

Things get soft, fall out of focus. The countryside recedes and she drifts up into the reddened darkness behind her closed lids. She’s rolled tight inside her blankets. She pulls her arms out.

_Some part of me must still be sleeping—dreaming about waking from a dream—because I hear that goddamned song, the song that haunted me the summer of Francesca. I’d know that piano riff anywhere and if I heard it, on the radio or in an elevator, it would make me feel just like this: fluttery and nervous on the inside, like my guts have gone through some metamorphosis and want to fly away. _

Emily turns onto her stomach. Her arms wrap around the pillow and pull it under her cheek.

_Do you really wanna see me crawl? And I’m never gonna make it like you do…_

“Makin love outta nothing at all,” she murmurs, throat dry and dusty with sleep. “That’s it.”

Her eyelashes flutter. Her breath stops.

In a blink she’s awake, full of slow even breaths and stillness. Icy adrenaline unwinds in the pit of her belly. She lifts her head, looks at the nightstand.

Her cell charger is there, limp and coiled, but her cell phone is gone. Her mouth goes dry. She pulls her legs up, sits. Her weapon is gone. She throws off the covers and looks around, checks the floor, peeks under the bed. Her mind traces a route downstairs to the kitchen, takes note of all the doors and alcoves along the way. She straightens up, freezes. Listens.

Downstairs, the stereo in the living room is on. The volume is low, but it isn’t too low. Her jaw tightens. Her adrenalized caution starts to smolder.

“Okay, someone is fucking with me,” she whispers. “But…how?”

_Have I ever told anybody about me and that song? Anyone at all?_

Her mouth tightens. Her nostrils flare. She moves to the bedroom door, peers out into the hallway. She holds her breath. She listens for shifting floorboards.

Emily slips out into the corridor, her eyes on the head of the stairs. She moves through still air, aware of cream walls and pristine blue carpet, simple frames hung level on the level.

New eyes slip down over hers, intruder-eyes. Through them she disassembles the arrangement of her living space, a casual dissection that’s comforting when it’s aimed at the victims she investigates every day but tastes like a mouthful of swamp water when she does it to herself. Hatred clenches in her throat, teeth grinding at whomever dared enter her bedroom while she was sleeping and take away the government-issued tools of her safety.

Her mind takes the intruder to a targeted silhouette and pumps it full of bullet holes.

_This unsub is gone; they know, somehow, that this particular musical calling-card will be more than enough to crawl under my skin._

“Still,” she mutters. “Better to be safe than sorry.”

Emily slides down the hall, her back to the wall. She checks each room, pulls its door closed. She pounds down the stairs, races into her kitchen; she grabs the phone off the charger, catches her reflection in the microwave: pale-faced, bright patches of red riding her cheekbones, chest rising and falling.

Her gun and her cell phone are arranged on the center island. She runs to them, snatches them up, hating her widened eyes as she works her gun free of its holster. She feels ridiculous, standing there in her bare feet and Miso Hot pajamas, her hair messy, cordless clutched in one hand and gun held in the other, breathing hard and trying to look everywhere at once.

The Air Supply song ends. It begins again.

_This is what he wants_. Hotch’s voice. Its cadence, the warm gravel of it, hits all the right spots inside her. _This is what he wants. _She starts to relax. _He wants you to feel out of control. This is what he does_.

She goes into the living room. She glances at the darkened TV screen.

_It must be a CD. A blank CD filled up with as many copies as it would hold. I wonder how long it’s been playing?_

The remote control is lined up with the edges of the coffee table. It holds down a folded piece of paper.

Emily looks around the room. Her heart slows but it still thrums against her ribs.

_I shouldn’t touch it. I shouldn’t…wait._

She uses her cell phone to take a picture. One up close, one from a distance.

She picks up the remote, turns off the stereo.

The paper is folded in thirds and without the weight of the remote one of the edges springs up. The paper is crisp and white, clean and unremarkable.

_It started life in a paper factory, some small forest town stinking of fumes, and languished in a wrapped ream until someone thumbed this piece off the top of the pile and used it to write…what?_

She picks it up. Through glass she hears the sound of the garbage truck backing up. The paper rustles between her fingers.

_You could’ve been a term paper or a government document or someone’s Christmas card list. But instead, you ended up here: the bit player and the leading role on a stage of manufactured fear. _

She opens it.

Black ink, capital letters slanting hard to the right, narrow and well-formed. She commits their proportions to memory before she comprehends. Even before she sees the red at the bottom of the page she knows how tall the letters are, that they came out of a place of calm.

She can almost imagine the hand that made them:

DON’T.

Below that, drawn in slow strokes, the red eye of providence.

She lifts the paper to her nose. She sniffs the ink. _Sharpie_. She puts the note down. She sits on the couch.

She looks at the phone and takes a breath and punches in a number with her thumb. She lifts the phone to her ear.

“Hi. This is Emily Prentiss. I need all my codes changed. No, no, everything is fine. I just…feel the need.”

She stares at the stereo display.

“Also, I want a locksmith. Can you recommend one?”


	2. Mistress Of All She Surveys

Jake’s: this is the team’s favorite restaurant. Part steak house and part sports bar, it is dark inside like the interior of a ship, carpeted in blue, polished with brass and watery light.

Here’s Garcia, dressed in something bright yellow, a fake lily outlined in glitter pinned into her hair. She gestures with her straw when she’s not chewing on it.

Here’s JJ, sitting sideways in her chair, flicking the head of foam on her pilsner glass with a polished fingernail.

It’s a busy night. Emily takes inventory of each customer as they walk through the door. She gives the couples and groups a pass, but she still scrutinizes, looking past the cues of fashion and the markers of gender, homing in on interactions, postures, gestures. The singletons command the lion’s share of her attention. Most of them are jammed elbow-to-elbow at the bar, eating nachos and watching the game or drinking beers while waiting for a table to open up.

Emily holds the stem of her glass with cold fingers. Her eyes probe the shadowy places. She reacts to the merest flicker of movement.

She takes a long drink of Merlot.

What memory she has of Foyet is blurred with adrenaline and fractured into pieces; she sees a gaunt figure with hands too big for its wrists, hairy forearms, an untucked shirt. She wants to know the ins and outs of his voice, its pitch, its inflections and accent, his mannerisms; she wishes she could tease the cadence and posture of his body out of a crowd. She craves that spark of recognition. She wants to know how it feels when he enters a room.

 “Em, are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She snaps back into the moment. A smile happens. “I’m fine.”

“You were kinda lost in space, there, for a minute,” says Garcia.

“Yeah…just. You know.” She puts the glass down, tones down her grin. “Long day. I was…ah, wondering about something, actually.”

“Long boring day,” says Garcia. “Long, luscious, awesomely boring day. I’m so relaxed. It’s just wrong.”

JJ butters half a roll. “What?”

Emily shifts her hair back over her shoulders. “Did I ever tell you guys the story about how when I was a kid in Italy I found a body in a stream?”

“Yeah, I think so.” JJ nods. “Weren’t you like…thirteen, or something?” She takes a bite. “It was the woman next door and she’d been murdered by the postman. Or something like that.”

“That’s her.” Emily pokes the leaves of her salad with her fork. “Her name was Francesca.”

Garcia takes a suck off her straw. “Why are you thinking about that?”

“I dream about it sometimes. I dreamed about it last night. It’s been kinda stuck in my brain like a…like…I dunno, like when you get something caught in your teeth.” She gestures at her mouth. “I guess I’m just…digging at it.” She shifts in her seat. “You know how there’ll be a song that comes out and just dominates the airwaves? It plays and plays until you’re sick to death of hearing it and can’t understand how there could be anyone left in the world who hasn’t heard it at least a thousand times?”

“Oh yeah.” JJ rolls her eyes. “Achy Breaky Heart, anyone?”

“Tell me about it,” says Garcia. “I used to actually scream when that song came on the radio.”

“Well that summer it was a song by Air Supply. Making Love Out Of Nothing At All.” Emily shakes her head. Her voice lowers. “I keep hearing it. It’s like…stuck in my head. It’s just a piece, though. Over and over.”

“Earworm.” Garcia breaks open a roll. “Did you take the Lady Gaga cure?”

“I did.” Emily nods with a wry smile. “I did, and nada.”

Garcia puts down her roll. “Poker Face failed?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Damn,” says Garcia. “This _is_ serious.”

“So do you want to talk about it?” JJ wipes her mouth. “I mean, I know the basic facts, but there’s always more to every story.”

“If you need an ear, we’re totally here for you.” Garcia reaches over and pats Emily’s hand.

“I’m not sure how much I’ve told you.” Emily’s eyes slide around the inside of the restaurant. “It was kind of a traumatic thing for a thirteen-year-old to witness.”

“Well yeah,” said Garcia. “I would’ve had nightmares for…well, forever, I guess. It’s not something you get over.”

“I remember…I remember that she was naked from the waist up.” Emily shrugs and looks into her plate. “Her boobs were showing.” She spears up some salad and takes a bite. “That really weirded me out for a long time.”

“Ew,” says Garcia.

“Yeah.” Emily chews and swallows and nods. “It was gross. What was really gross was how it kept making me think of…like, Playboy spreads and stuff. How the only reference I had for naked breasts were pictures in girlie magazines.”

“That is rough,” says JJ.

“And sexist and awful.” Garcia reaches for the butter bowl. “And ew. Just plain ew. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

“This job will make pretzels of your mind. The things you have to do to your thoughts, the way you have to twist everything around just so you’ll sleep at night.” JJ sips her beer. “It takes strength.”

“Which you’ve got in spades.” Garcia grins and bumps Emily’s arm with her fist. “I don’t know how you guys do it. Seriously. I’m _so_ not tough enough.”

“You’re tough,” says Emily, turning her head. “I’ve heard you in there, sitting in your little computer cave and not taking anybody’s shit.”

“Yeah, but those are just voices on the phone.” Garcia rolls her eyes. “Voices that belong to the bumbling idiots of East Butthole more often than not. Dealing with them is easy. They’re not those guys who’d skin you just as soon as look at you…and then go and have sex with the skin.” She shudders. “Ewwwww.”

JJ swirls a slice of cucumber through a bit of dressing and takes a bite. “Well, sometimes they are.”

“This is true.” Emily folds up a bit of roll and pops it into her mouth. “You never know. Psychopaths look just like everyone else.”

“Gah, don’t remind me.” Garcia drinks. “I spend a lot of time trying to forget that little fact. I bury it in glitter pens. When it tries to speak to me I shove something with unicorns on it into its leering nasty little mouth.”

JJ chuckles.

“Oooh, we have incoming.” Garcia sits up straighter. “Hey! Where the hell is Derek?”

JJ turns her head. Emily looks up in time to see Hotch and Reid making their way toward the table. Hotch has his suit coat off and hanging over one arm and there is rain in his hair. He sees her looking and smiles. The shape of it slides into her stomach and spreads out; he is always the same, taking up the air and filling her with feelings both serene and taut.

Reid plunks down between JJ and Garcia. “He’s late.”

Garcia leans back in her chair. She slides her glasses down and looks at him over the frames. “You’re gonna tell me it took a genius to figure that out?”

“I think he’s stuck in traffic.” Hotch drapes his suit coat over the back of the chair. “He said he had some stuff to take care of. He’ll be along.”

 “So you’re seriously telling me it took a certified genius to figure that out.”

Reid shakes out his napkin. “They have to justify my exorbitant salary somehow.”

“Here.” Garcia giggles and pats his shoulder. “Have a bun.”

Hotch pulls up to the table. He looks around. “I see you’ve been here long enough to get your salads.”

“Yeah, speaking of which.” Reid waves his fork. “Em, do you mind if I snag your tomato?”

“Oh. No.” She holds up her plate. “Go ahead.”

He reaches across and spears it. “Thanks.”

Emily’s phone rings.

“Perhaps that’s Derek begging forgiveness for his unrepentant tardiness.” Garcia takes a bite of salad.

“As if.” Reid makes a face. “He’d call you for that.”

“Hmmm.” She pretends to contemplate. “I guess he would, huh?”

Emily smiles and pulls the phone out of her purse. “Prentiss.” She plugs her ear and strains to listen. She raises her voice. “Hello?”

A breath like a chuckle breaks into the background noise.

Emily tightens her lips and hangs up. She puts the phone on the table. “Dropped call.” She shrugs. She fishes a shred of carrot out of her salad and bites into it. “Maybe they’ll call back.”

“Maybe they won’t,” says Garcia.

Reid bites into his roll. “Maybe you’re better off.”

Hotch opens a menu. Reid orders a plate of hot wings. Emily watches him, her heart moving in short dry beats. Her breath is tight.

Details snap into focus with excruciating clarity: the veins in the blue faux leather of Hotch’s menu, the dusty light reflecting off the leaves of rubber plants, the clinking of forks plates glasses, the basketball game on the TV, the torchy twang of a Juice Newton song (_break it to me gently—let me down the easy way_), the strong smells of fried fish and onion rings.

Hotch closes his menu. A waitress passes behind her chair, holding aloft a tray of appetizers. The wind in her wake stirs the small hairs on Emily’s neck.

The phone rings again. She makes her voice sharp. “Prentiss.”

“Oh I know just how to whisper, and I know just how to cry.” The crooning voice in her ear makes her think of cigarette smoke and blues songs drowned in whiskey. “Hi, Emily.” He chuckles. The skin on her thighs crawls. “Did you get my note?”

Reid, in the middle of saying something to Garcia, double-takes at the look on Emily’s face. Her mouth tremors into a one-sided grin and bends her head, turning in her chair away from the table.

“Yeah.” She pitches her voice low and soft. “Didn’t I tell you not to call this number?”

JJ’s eyebrows go up. She and Garcia exchange curious yet gleeful looks.

“Quick on your feet.” Foyet laughs. “I like that.”

“Excuse me.” She stands and turns to see all faces on her. “I’m going to take this outside.” She holds up the phone. “It won’t be a minute.”

“All right,” says JJ. “We’ll be here.”

Hotch touches the inside of Emily’s wrist. She startles a little, turns.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Her smile turns contrite. “I’ll be right back.”

“With aaaall the details,” Garcia sing-songs.

Emily feels Reid’s eyes follow her as she makes her way through the crowded tables. She swings her hair down over her face, presses the phone to her ear. She lowers her voice. “What do you want?”

“I just want to know you’re thinking about me. You are, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” She pushes through the front door and the little bell jangles her nerves. “I am.” Cold air hits the heat in her cheeks. “I’m thinking about how to put a bullet in your brain.”

“Is Aaron thinking about me too?”

She moves out into the light drizzle. Broad cones of orange streetlight flicker with moisture and the cold air smells like mossy exhaust. She walks a little way down the sidewalk, past the plate glass window with its buzzing neon sign, and ducks beneath a nearby awning. “I don’t know.” Her eyes crawl the street. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

He chuckles. “It’s more fun to ask you.”

“If you break into my house again? I swear to God, I will kill you.”

“You’re a real heavy sleeper, Emily.” The smirk rubs itself all over his voice. “Why, you don’t even wake up when someone sits on your bed.”

“Fuck you.” She looks up and down the street. “What do you want?”

“I want you to enjoy your dinner.”

“What t-the…how—so you are here.” In the canned background, muted by a roar of voices, she hears Juice Newton moaning (_give me tiiiimmmmme—oh give me a little time_) over the clink of silverware. Her muscles twitch. She moves to the plate glass window and tries to look in but the glass is tinted and it’s too dark inside. “So why don’t you come out here, then?” Her voice tightens into a hiss. “Talk some trash to my face?”

He laughs.

“What’s the matter, George?” Her weight shifts from one foot to the other. “Afraid of a girl with a gun? You know, the whole creeping thing, that’s pretty pathetic. Unless, of course, the only way you can get into a woman’s bedroom is by breaking into her house.”

The rhythm of his breath overlays the change in song. This one she doesn’t know, but it sounds like a cheap dive-bar refugee from the late 80s. It throws disco-ball reflections across the inside of her mind.

“Huh? Got any more trash talk for me, George? Huh?” She lets out a laugh that’s breathless and jagged. “Weak. That’s fucking weak.” She jabs the disconnect button with her finger and flings the phone into her purse.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Emily jumps. “Jesus Christ, Morgan.” She puts her hands over her face and takes a couple of deep breaths. She turns around. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“So who’s George?”

Her heart pumps out a sting of humiliation. For one sharp sickening moment she’s thirteen years old, her father is standing over her bed with a Playgirl magazine in his hand and an unbearably stern look, and Emily can’t stop the hot blush from pouring into her face. Morgan’s eyebrows go up. He folds his arms and stands hipshot, fighting with the beginnings of a smile.

She shakes her head, stammers, and clears her throat. “It’s…” She lets out a sharp sigh. “It’s nothing—no one. Don’t worry about it.” Her hand flicks in an unconscious chop. “It’s not a problem. I’m—I’m fine.”

“S’okay.” Morgan holds up his hands. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“It’s just a stupid argument,” she goes on, zipping up her purse. “It’s stupid, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“All right,” he says. “Let’s go in.”

“Okay.” She nods and shoulders her purse. “Let’s. It’s miserable out here.”

The faces of her team are like buoys; their voices are bells calling her home.

Emily takes a big bite of her burger and the textures, the flavors, the smells strike senses strung just shy of the breaking point. Her whole body hums. She can’t keep her eyes off the door.

_I will be safe here_, she thinks as she sits, _I will be because this is my life, goddammit, my life and I am mistress of all I survey_.

She lingers on firearms she’s had in the past, compares them to one another. She thinks about where she can get another gun, but she doesn’t trust the situation to something new, to a machine that her hand doesn’t know.

Her trigger finger has its own chain of command. In chaos and fear, the muscle memory will take over, and her hand remembers every gun it has fired.


	3. Masks

Emily is at the shooting range, squeezing off rounds. Peace comes in the kickbacks.

She spends a lot of time at the shooting range. After work, if she’s in town, she goes straight to a long narrow corridor and headphones and the paper target, where a half hour of shooting gives her the serenity she needs to step out of her car, walk into her townhouse, and refill her life with calm.

Fooling a profiler takes a certain kind of skill, a hipshot grace. Letting some things slip and being up front about others while covering up the rest creates a shifting map that’s difficult for even the most skilled reader to follow. It’s like jazz: keep the key consistent, execute the chord changes within a certain range, and people will pick it up and make it their own.

Flash an occasional Mona Lisa smile and they’ll queue up to invent your secrets.

She has always known she could kill. It’s been buried inside her since childhood, a barbed wall to hide behind.

For the first time she enjoys the power, the raw force kicking into her palms, and knows how it feels to put all of her ill will behind a bullet.

Morgan, Garcia, Rossi, and JJ all think she’s got romantic troubles. Together they have orchestrated a family-style reconnaissance mission: Rossi brings her coffee, Garcia and JJ bring her lunch, and all of them roll earnest talk over food, praying to come up roses. They’ll do the verbal tango with her subtle distress and offer consolation.

Every once in a while, Morgan will pull her aside and ask her, with a lift of his eyebrows, if things are all right. Reid thinks there’s more to it, that perhaps she’s working the romance angle to cover up problems with her family, and conscious of his own rock-ribbed need for privacy he does not come knocking on hers.

Hotch is the dangerous one. He never asks with his voice but he’s always asking with his eyes, his desire for knowledge between them like a tightening knot. He’ll read the map that he can’t understand and still remember all the landmarks. He’s patient. He’s a collector of keys. In his spare moments he’ll sit at the table, going through them, lining up the edges and waiting to unlock her mystery.

Emily discharges her spent clip, rams home another one. She licks her lips, she tastes brimstone.

A little over a week. Nine days.

At first she couldn’t sleep, but that passed with the lengthening hours. She was raw to the world, open, chilled beneath a shadow of endless possibilities.

_Foyet knows how to mess with people. How to mess with _me.

At first her mind built elaborate scenarios during every waking minute even as she discarded them all, infuriated, because it was what he wanted.

_I have to force myself to relax into his rhythm._

The dance imagery sparks a bitter smile.

_But is it so wrong? _First there is music, a dance card, the contact of a hand; you’re on your feet, following someone’s body and learning on the fly how to read a shift in posture, a tightening of the hand. Transmission of intent skin to skin.

Bullet holes bloom in tight bouquet.

_Is the dance beginning, is this the middle, or is it the end? What is the music?_

Her hands numbs itself to a rapid chain of impacts.

_My life is a dance floor and the music is a mystery. There’s a rose in my teeth and its thorns have pierced my lips but I can hold onto it for as long as I need to._

“A threat is concrete,” she mutters. “It can be deconstructed and examined for weak spots.”

_But the imagination_…

There’s a sense of disconnection from her world, a thin barrier between herself and the tenderness of her mind. She feels it, knows it’s there; she keeps a watch on it, determined to take steps. There’s a rotten freedom that tastes sweet because it is so rotten: certain things no longer seem so important when you know that your own life is snoozing on a chopping block and dreaming calamitous dreams. When you are a misplaced action away from personal tragedy.

_Theoretically everyone is anyway_, she thinks, ramming home a fresh clip. _But it’s different when you can name it. Names have power, substance. _She straightens out her elbow and squeezes off a handful of rounds. _And thus is the name made flesh._ More holes blink open in a tight cluster around the drawn-on heart. Holes like eyes. _And flesh dies._

Afterward, she sits in her car with the windows rolled down. The breeze is cool but holds a scent of the day’s heat. Flower petals stick to her windshield.

She watches people in the parking lot, returning to their cars and leaving them, and she wonders at their life stories. It’s amazing how much can lurk out of sight within the rolled-up, tucked-away personas that people steer through their everyday lives. How many secrets graven in ink so old that the whorls and loops of the letters are starting to fade? Scars slumber deep beneath the skin. Many of them are government employees, their edges sanded to uniform size.

What looked like a shield now looks more like a mask. Smooth, nonthreatening, neutral. Something to hide behind.

She grips the steering wheel, asks the same question she asks every night:

_Do I go home?_

After Jake’s, sitting in her car, the blue light from the neighboring bar pouring into her eyes, she looked at her cell phone display. She dug a pad out of her purse, wrote down the number. It was a local number.

One ten-digit code to unlock the mess of one bad decision. Tears burned and she struggled with the urge to make it right, to take the whole story to Hotch’s apartment and vomit all of it up into his hands. He would believe her. He would take it away, he would take it apart, and they’d wash his hands together.

Her gnawing anger forced her into pulling over. She wiped her eyes, dialed the number, chewed on her bottom lip.

The answering click thrummed in her veins.

The guy on the other end had a thick New Jersey accent and no idea who she was: _Yeah, I was at Jake’s tonight. A guy there paid me a hundred bucks to use the phone. I’m behind on the bills, you know, because the horses ain’t been so nice. No, he didn’t tell me his name. He was a white guy. Sorry, sweetheart. Beyond that I got nothing. He said you’d probably call, though. Does that help?_ Frustrated, she said thank you and hung up.

She leaned her head into the headrest, imagined confiscating the phone, dusting it for prints, creating a chain of evidence. Beyond a single link, it crumbled. A disinterested chain of command, a vicious press, could paint her into the crazy corner with a handful of precise strokes.

Hotch would believe her, but beyond the confines of his office? Beyond the loyalty of her team? The Bureau looked down on Hotch. They looked down on his team. Their edges weren’t sanded down enough and the masks they hid behind still bled some semblance of emotion.

Emily watches a young blonde woman get into her car.

_Do I go home?_


	4. Padre Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contains spoilers for episode 2x18, "Jones."

Emily knows two things about Padre Island: you can get in your car and drive the whole length of the beach, dodging rattlesnakes and tarantulas, and the seagulls are wild enough to swoop down and bite the French fry out of your mouth.

On the jet, she stares at the clouds. Details float and bob in her mind, bumping up against one another: dead jocks. Raped alpha males. Spring Break bacchanal. Tied up. Could it be a woman alone?

She flashes back to New Orleans, the case with the med student, luring men with the promise of her body to an abattoir death—turning the old Jack the Ripper narrative inside out. Emily’s mouth quirks. _At least Sarah Danlin gets points for style_.

When she arrives in Texas, she learns more: there’s a constant heat tinged with a scent of oil, muggy and blowing in off the water, hinting at its tropical birth. The sand is soft, littered. The sun is a hammer, beating bronze into skin and lassitude into bones. The streets smell like tar and Coppertone. Throngs of beach bodies, stupefied by alcohol-soaked hormones, gyrating to canned beats, set her teeth on edge.

Her room is on the top floor of the team’s high-rise. Overlooking the garish lights of the on-season, lofty enough to erase the sounds of traffic and the frantic thump of club music, its décor is soothing and tasteful in its blandness. Watercolor portraits of seashells and pelicans hang on the walls. The carpet is soft, the lighting indirect.

Emily orders room service, spreads crime scene photos and witness accounts across the unoccupied bed.

She leaves them there, wanders onto her tiny balcony in cutoff sweats and a sports bra. She holds an ice cold bottle of water. Beyond the railing, the sea stretches out flat and black beneath hazy stars. A wind blows her hair against her cheek. It smells strongly of salt.

Her cell phone rings. She takes it out of her pocket, looks up into the black. “Prentiss.”

“Hot enough for you?”

“You know,” she sighs, that hot metal sensation tightening in her guts, “you never did tell me what you wanted besides the sleepless nights, the changing of the locks, the nights at the shooting range, the constant obsessing over you and I have been, George.” The wind fills into her mouth, loads her tongue with salt. “I think about you all the time.” She starts to sweat. “I look for you all the time.”

He chuckles. “Is this the part where I tell you what I’m wearing?”

“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“I want to tell you what _you’re_ wearing.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

“Hmmm, let’s see. Black linen skirt. Tasteful, knee-length. A purple sleeveless blouse, sandals and a ponytail.”

“Wrong.”

“So you changed your clothes.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I took them off.”

“Are you flirting with me, Agent Prentiss?”

She lets out a short laugh. “Hardly.”

“Well, I have been working out.”

“No, no. No no no no.” She turns her back on the water. “This is the part where you tell me what you’re going to do to me if I don’t give you what you want. Then—you tell me what it is you _do_ want. Otherwise I pick up the hotel phone, I call my team, and this bullshit dance comes to an end.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, yeah?” She strides into the room and sits on the bed, pulls on a pair of sneakers. “You feel like trying me?”

 “If I told you I was on the other side of this door?”

“What?” Emily’s hands freeze. “My door?”

“No, no. No no no no.” He chuckles. “That of the dashing and gallant Agent Hotchner.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

“Why…are you holding your breath, Emily?”

She scoops her gun and badge off the nightstand, drops them into her purse. “What do you want?”

“I want to tell you a story, and then you’ll tell me a story. Do you like stories?”

She crosses the room. “I like happy endings.”

“Of course. Of course you do…but there’s more than one way to be happy, isn’t there?”

“I suppose…yes. I suppose there is.” Emily slips out the door.

“Once upon a time, there was a man. He stood in the hallway of a second-rate hotel, the kind that would only impress a tourist. He had a bullet in his pocket and an unloaded revolver in his hand. He asked himself what to do but there was no answer, so he asked the girl on the other end of the phone instead: what should I do?”

“Put the bullet in the gun. Put the gun in your mouth. Pull the trigger.”

“I’m disappointed. I thought you were more creative than that.”

Emily heads for the elevator. “The girl on the other end of the phone thinks he should ask himself a different question.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. If he kills the man in the hotel room, he kills his leverage. She doesn’t doubt that he knows where to find more, but destruction creates more work for him. It’s no longer efficient.” The elevator doors make noise. “When he breaks this moment, marked by a bullet in his pocket and a gun in his hand, marked by a question, he breaks his efficiency. All the power waits in that moment. How long can he keep her there? How good is he?” She watches the numbers light up, slide down. “That’s the question, isn’t it?  How good are you, George?”

“I’m the best.”

The elevator glides to a stop. The doors open. “Prove it.”

“How quickly do you think I can get in through this door?”

She takes the stairs one at a time and modulates her breath. “Do you have a key?”

“Getting the key was easy. It’s always so easy.”

Her footfalls echo in the stairwell. She approaches the third floor exit, peers through a narrow rectangle of wired glass. On the other side are two vending machines and ice. She leans against the cinderblock wall, reaches into her purse. She loosens the holster. “Why Hotch?”

“Why not?”

“You could have picked Morgan. Or me.”

“You need to ask yourself that question.”

“Oh.” She turns around and reaches for the handle, pushing it down, easing it until she feels the bolt disengage. There is a soft click. “I do.”

“Don’t you?”

“I know you broke into my storage space. I know you read my old journals. That’s how you know about Francesca. And the song.”

Foyet’s tone turns confidential. “Was she beautiful in her death? You wrote so eloquently about the dirt in her eyes and the whiteness of her lips. Did you like the thought of fucking her cold flesh? Did it make you wet?”

She flattens herself against the wall. She looks around the corner and sees all the way down to the end, where it turns right. She crosses the hallway and keeps close to the opposite wall, her pulse fluttering in her ears. The carpet weakens her footfalls.

“It still does.”

His breath changes.

“A pubescent girl, bewildered and confused, waking up hot in the night from dreams about cold breasts and stab wounds, wondering what it might be like to put her fingers inside. She didn’t know anatomy back then, thought it might be soft. That her heart might feel soft and slippery after the blood stopped. Like a piece of meat.” Emily moves her mouth close to the receiver and breathes out, whispers. “You like that story, George?”

“I like it.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

She creeps up to the place where the corridor turns. She takes the phone away from her ear. She leans. Her heart beats faster. Her toes inch. Her mouth goes dry.

She peeks past the edge.

It’s a long hallway. A man with a slight tan sits in loose cargo shorts with his back against a door. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt and his knees are up, sandal-clad feet pointing to the door opposite.

“I don’t know. Is that in my profile?”

Emily turns around, her shoulder blades pressed into the cool wall. She closes her eyes. Gooseflesh rises out of her racing blood and sinks back down again, making her hot and cold, transmitting nervous energy up through all the tiny hairs embedded in her skin. Her lips part. Her thumb hovers over the disconnect button.

“Emily? Oh Em-i-ly.”

She ends the call, slides the phone into her pocket. Pulls in a deep breath.

Her feet bring him into view, awaken her mind to detail: hot tungsten light, rose-colored carpet, cream walls, the thick sinews of his feet bound up in their rubber prison. She moves through a dreamy net of seconds with her hand buried in her purse.

Her fingers caress the gun.

 

A sense of shadow, the reaction of his body. Subtle chain of muscle and skin falling over inside him until his head turns. The charm in his weathered face, hiding in fine lines, dozing and dangerous.

Her dizzy breath and a thunderstorm brewing in her belly, collision of overheated blood and cold adrenaline.

His crooked smile is like a curtain lifting.

She lifts her chin. Sweat coats her skin.

A glimpse of something in those hollow eyes, some flicker in his deep down dark.

 “No,” she says. “It’s not.”

He stands. She holds in the trembling; there is moisture between her palm and the metal but her mind is getting sharper.

He closes the phone with his fingers, letting the hand fall to his side. She soaks up the sight of him. His eyes follow her neck to her shoulder, languid. They slide down the length of her arm and hypnotized, seduced by her own audacity, she starts to drip. He looks at her purse and lifts his eyes, those dimples surfacing. Her insides twist, open up a hollow space. The shape of his gun in hangs heavy in his pocket.

Her breath settles into her nose. She works up some saliva. Threads her finger through the trigger guard. She swallows.

“This is a surprise.”

“Did you think I would sit upstairs in my room?” Dry mouth, husky voice. “Like a scared little girl?” She takes a step forward. She withdraws the gun a millimeter at a time. “You picked the wrong woman, George.”

“Not bad.” An intimate and admiring tone of voice. “Not bad at all.”

Emily points the gun at him. “If you run, I’ll shoot you.”

“I have no doubt.”

“I’ll enjoy it, too.” She takes a couple of steps closer. “In fact, I kind of want you to run.”

“Sorry.”

Emily looks down, pushes the muzzle into his navel. She looks up, hips turning; she leans over and reaches into his pocket. He goes still, arms at his sides. She withdraws his gun.

He smells like skin and salt and suntan lotion and ambergris and cut grass. Her breath flutters, strums between her ribs.

His smile turns loose.

Face burning, she shoves his gun into her purse. He tilts his head, watches her hand writhe into his other pocket. She pulls up a pair of bullets. Beneath his smirk she checks the thigh pockets. One arm slips around him, her body tilted toward the wall, her face angled to the floor. Her fingers find his back pocket, a sheathed hunting knife.

He lifts a finger up beneath a loose bit of her hair. His knuckle grazes her skin. She stiffens. He runs the hair through his fingers, lets it fall against her neck. Her shy skin blooms, warms up. It starts to hum. She breathes hard and clenches her teeth, yanks the knife out.

“Turn around.” She tucks the knife into the back waistband of her shorts. “Put your hands on the fucking wall.” Each breath bottoms out. “Now.”

Her cell phone rings.

She jumps.

He starts to laugh. The tightening of his abdominal muscle thrums into her hand.

“You gonna answer that, Agent Prentiss?”

“Shut up.” Emily digs the phone out of her pocket. She glances at the display. “Yeah, Reid, what’s up?”

“Where are you? I’m with Hotch and we’ve been knocking on your door for five minutes.”

“F-Funny how that is.” She holds Foyet’s gaze. A smile flickers on her mouth. “I’ve been down here knocking on Hotch’s door for five minutes.”

“Are you all right? You sound…” He laughs. “I don’t know. Winded?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I was at the gym and decided to take the stairs. I don’t know what I was thinking, you know, I didn’t…”

Foyet reaches over, slides a hand beneath her arm. Her skin jumps, roughens with gooseflesh. His fingers burrow into her purse. He eases out his gun.

“…b-bother cooling down, which is dumb I know. I had a thought on the StairMaster.” She narrows her eyes, keeps her voice neutral. Foyet transfers the gun to his other hand, grinning at her. He goes for the knife. Emily halts his wrist. He pushes and her fingers tighten. “I figured I’d stop by Hotch’s room on the way back up to mine.” She tugs, takes an unsteady step closer to him. Emily turns her face. “I thought an extra couple flights wouldn’t hurt, but I overestimated my recovery time.”

“That’s not a good idea, you know, but you do know. So, uh, what was the thought you had? On the StairMaster?”

“I was thinking about Sarah Danlin.” Foyet leans in, the tip of his nose close to her hairline. “I wondered…I wondered…I-I…you know, in New Orleans?” He finds the tiny hairs in the hollow of her temple, brushes them with his mouth. She twitches. “I-I just totally lost my train of thought, there. Shit. What was I saying?” Her fingers dig into the tendons of his wrist. She wrenches it to one side and his smoked caramel breath steams up the roots of her hair. “Yeah. Sarah Danlin worked alone.” His raspy smile unfolds across her skin. “Do you think it’s possible our unsub is working alone?”

“These are big guys and there’s the rape to consider. Unless she’s bringing semen along and using an implement like a turkey baster to mimic the biological residue of rape, it’s most likely partners.”

“But…I don’t know.” Foyet tugs his arm out of her slippery grip. “I guess it seemed more plausible on the StairMaster.”

“Em, are you sure you’re okay? Maybe…I dunno, maybe your blood sugar is low? How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

“I’m fine.”

Foyet pulls back. He half-grins, waves his fingers. He turns around. He moves away with an easy stride.

“Really. No dizzies, no shaking. I’m just tired and I…probably need some water.”

“We can head back down there if you want.”

Emily holds up the gun. Foyet breaks into a jog.

“Okay.”

Her finger twitches oh-so-slightly against the trigger. He runs to the elevator.

“That will…I guess that will be fine.”

“I was thinking about ordering some Chinese, too. You want anything?”

_Ding_.

“No.” Emily’s joints swoon. Her arm drops. She shakes all over. “I’m not hungry.”


	5. Heavy In Your Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contains spoilers for episode 4x20, "Conflicted."

Emily opens her windows to a constant drumming of spring rain. She puts on a thick sweater, makes herself some tea. She likes the sound. It makes her think of childhood, Saturdays, gray mornings cold enough for flannel and slippers.

She carries the steaming mug into the living room. She sits on the sofa. She takes a tentative sip and puts the cup on a coaster, slides her laptop onto her knees.

Her fingers tap the keys.

_In a way, I was right: a woman acting alone. Except she was inside a male body, using it, sharing space with a man. Two-for-one._

She pauses.

_Hotch keeps circling me. He thinks I don’t notice, but how could I not? I’m waiting for the day when I’ll get the summons: _We need to talk, Emily. About what’s going on with you. You haven’t been right since Texas_. I can imagine the meaningful pause behind that piercing gaze and his soft, soft voice: _Is there anything I can do?

She sits back, looks out the window. It’s a beautiful view made atmospheric and accessible by dark clouds and blowing curtains of rain. Lights reflect in the droplets of water on the glass. The wind changes and she smells rain, cold, exhaust and beaten-down jonquils.

Was there anything he could do? She’d crossed into no-man’s land.

_No way to say there’s nothing you can do for me. I could say it, but he wouldn’t hear it. Hotch, tools in hand: let me fix you. Except I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s not like a broken pipe or a hole punched into the drywall. I’d ask myself if I’ve lost my mind but that’s too dramatic. A statement like that needs sinister music in the background, and there is none. There’s just me and an old song used like a tool to pry into my mind._

She bites her lip.

_It’s ridiculous of me to even type this, to think my computer is a safe place. I know there aren’t any._ _So here’s your progress report, George. Here’s what’s happening: Hotch has wind of this and you know Hotch. He won’t let it go. Sooner or later he’ll spring his concern on me like a trap and where will we be then? _

_I bet you like that, too. Where will we be then. Me, naming myself as your co-conspirator. It gives you whatever passes for jollies in your sick little world._

_I might as well tell you everything, if only because I have to tell it to myself. _

_I’m afraid of Hotch because I’m afraid of how he makes me feel. Not in the Hallmark Hall of Fame way. It’s very functional. I suspect that it’s chemical, some sort of response to a body- knowledge that he would step between me and a bullet. I’m convinced there’s a whole world happening between people at the chemical level: famines, wars, reconstructions, long fractured times of peace. He doesn’t even know that you’re the bullet and still he’s trying to intervene._

She lets out a held breath.

_The bottom line is that if he wanted me I would allow him to have me. I’m not sure I could stop it; the undertow of all that chemical history would pull me down. People like you don’t believe in love, but I’m not sure that people like me believe in love, either, at least not the way we’re taught to see it. Roses and kisses and moonlit walks on the beach are inadequate letters used to try and spell out all the things that exist beyond language._

At different times of the day, Emily imagines different times in Foyet’s life.

She’s read his file. A copy of it sits in the trunk of her car. Its skeletal nature is infuriating.

How can someone go through life with so little definition? It’s a blueprint she’s seen hundreds of times: abusive father, inadequate mother, hints of retroactive suspicion surrounding the death of his biological parents but nothing substantial—who would want to believe a nine-year-old capable of murder? He has an IQ of 150. This tested at ten, by the state of Massachusetts, just before the Foyets stepped onto the stage of his life. What makes some abuse survivors and not others into murderers? His file details a childhood otherwise uneventful, spent in good schools, vacations in Europe, summers on Nantucket.

Is it some quirk of the brain, perhaps, some misfiring knot of neurons? Long dry periods of hibernation, killer’s instincts dozing.

Is it something else?

Emily doesn’t believe in evil the way Rossi does. When she looks at unsubs, she sees broken minds, crippled growth, shattered personalities. What is deformed by the vagaries of life can’t be made right, and through the mind’s countless attempts to reconstitute itself, the birth-map becomes warped. Wires short out. Things fall to rot.

In the mornings, while on her way to work or sorting through her mail, she imagines him: sitting at a bench with a newspaper in the sun, in a parked car in the rain, drinking coffee beneath the brim of a baseball cap at a table in an outdoor café. She sees him framed by four dingy walls, eating frozen dinners, sunlight snuffed by curtains, watching television until his thoughts drown.

_How is it to live on the outside of everything? I imagine you like an animal in a bolthole. Some small hunched thing, sleeping surrounded by the bones of its kills: cheap anonymous hotel room on skid row, a squat somewhere, such desolation. Is that you? Maybe you want me to think so, want _us_ to think so, but I don’t. You blend in, you creep across the land, you alter your presence to fit whatever situations you find yourself in. _

_I’m starting to admire you for it. _

_I couldn’t do what you do. I’m too tied in by the families I was born to and those that I have chosen, held down by my work. I honestly think we choose this work for its weight. People like me, growing up like a leaf on the wind, need the ponderousness and gravity of this job. We need to be snatched by the hair and hauled back from the edge._

By lunchtime, she’s honed in on a single phrase: Summers on Nantucket. She’s been a couple of times and both times she felt the press of the sea, its numbing alienation from the mainland. Island life is small.

How did that feel? Was it like a tight skin, something pushing down on his grandiose ambitions? She imagines those long-faced New England girls, blue-blooded blondes, girls with coltish legs and big white teeth.

His teenage friends would’ve imagined those small white breasts filling up their curved palms. What was young George Foyet thinking of? What filled his sticky dreams? Did he sleep with a hunting knife, its thin hot gleaming edge more arousing than a thought of salty post-pubescent cunts wrapped up in sand-chafed bikini bottoms?

She imagines him in the moonstruck darkness of a heavy summer night, laying on top of the covers, windows open, salty wind ricocheting, a knife tight in his hand. Beveled blade, the silver moon running back and forth, back and forth, his eyes racing those deadly curves and mesmerized by a dream of…what? The resistance of Lycra-wrapped elastic? Yielding skin? The heat of released blood? Teenage and slender, well-built in a cold wash of moonlight. Heavy breath. Letting go of the knife, the flat of the blade resting on his swollen cock, perpendicular and trembling with the ferocity of his pulse.

Emily takes a sip of tea. It warms up the inside of her mouth and her face gets hot.

_Those ties are the harness holding me over the pit. What is swimming around beneath me? You are._

Her evenings slide straight into dreams.

She sees him like a warped bud, folded tight and hard around his grandiose sense of self. How constraining are the limits of skin. Would he sleep in bowers built of his own bones? How to let go, to slide down into the pool of the unconscious, when the universe of one’s reality lives in one’s own flesh?

_It is very close now. That moment, that night, the hour when Hotch finds his way into me. He’ll ask his questions, he’ll bring his tools. Then the real work begins. How long will I hold on?_

Her fingers itch. She wants a lever to pry open the petals, to shove her nails beneath them until there is blood all over her hands.

_Oh, Hotch. I’m so heavy in your arms._


	6. No One Ever Notices The Switch

History is not so easy to kill. Books may burn but forgetfulness cannot be enforced. Regimes storm onto the stage, gutting as they go. Pillars of the past fall into pieces and flowers spring up where important feet once trod.

The evidence of history is delicate. Zealous guards stand over it with cotton gloves and climate-controlled boxes. A taint of oils from the skin, a seep of humidity, and all is lost—or so the secret police would have you believe. Preaching voices, rhythms swaying into the crowd, compensating for the fact that paper is fragile and monuments are subject to the destructive vagaries of nature.

But memories linger. They grow long in the mind, changing with time, and travel the bridges of words between mouths. Kill who you were, burn the bones and scatter the ashes, but the reflections will live on.

Emily stretches out on the couch. The laptop balances on her hipbones, its heat seeping into the deepest layers of her flesh. The silence of the house is stippled by rain, smeared by traffic and smoothed by the whir of the laptop’s little fan.

She breaks the bubble. She steps in, lets the darkness pour out of hidden places. She sees herself at sixteen, herself at seventeen, shipwrecked years strewn across the basement floor of her mind.

Like a scarlet letter tattooed into her bleeding breast, like something left out in the elements to disintegrate, at the end of each day she scraped herself back together and bound the pieces up with silky black ribbons. Shoved it into steel-toed boots. In those days there was chaos and it was sweet. It felt like life in the face of her stultifying home, the parties, the nannies, everything arranged just so.

After her abortion, she would only fuck girls. Lots and lots of girls, most of them dark-haired and round-bodied. Digging for the spark. A few of them offered to get in the bathtub for her, hold ice in their cunts, after late nights inhaling incense and pot. Goth girls. Ladies in love with the idea of blood drops meaning more than soft open-mouthed kisses exchanged in the backseats of cars, surrounded by headstones. Cold rain steaming up the rearview mirror. Suicide girls. Scratch on the wrist, stroke of a tongue. Shivering up close to the edge and holding there, hot iron burning in the nostrils, clenching tight, holding it all in until deft fingers unlocked the reservoir.

Fingers on her face, stroking: let me be your living dead girl. I’ll make myself cold for you. We’ll fuck until it hurts and then we’ll fuck until it’s numb. Yeah?

Her body gets heavy. Her waking thoughts pull apart and the sleeping ones creep in.

Emotions gain texture and scent as they cross into the real world. A silky pile of fear sits in her mouth and the lust inside is scratchy, tender on the insides of her cheeks. Her hands are on her thighs, skin to skin, rubbing as if the friction is enough to keep her feet on the ground. She smells roses.

Emily is caught in the blue. All around her thick and deep, star-speckled, sanded down by the sounds of waves, are drifts of darkness. Houses like shells perch in scrub pines and cranky wild rose bushes, whistling empty in the constant wind.

The beach is broad and lonesome, flat, gleaming in the wet places. Dune grass like hair on flanks of pale sand. Stones embed in the wet, drawing loose arrows in the rushing water. White foam turns to moldy lace.

Down the sweep of beach lanterns of colored glass flicker, adrift in the night. She walks toward firmer ground. Ocean-cold burrows between the bones of her feet, filled with the scent of salt. Her forehead itches. She reaches up, fingertips brushing silken petals and rough-edged leaves and thorny fur. Her hands come away, smeared with rose-scented blood.

In the center of the lanterns is Foyet, in his loose white shirt and faded jeans, one of the floppy bright pink beach roses shoved into a buttonhole. He watches her with an expression made indistinct by fire-written shadow. His hands are ghostly, too big, laddered with raw-looking scratches. His fingernails are torn. The wind is warm and salty and bruised with soap.

She enters his place. With a smile carved out of bone and curved lines gathering in his cheeks, he comes close and takes up her hands. His eyes, the wet line of his closed lips holding the moonlight, making tarnished glints of it. His head bows. He kisses the blood drying on her fingers.

She pulls white petals out of her crown. She wipes her red fingerprints off his chin.

His mouth opens. She puts the petals on his tongue, makes the sign of the cross.

He uses the beat of her blood as a rhythm, draws her into a tango. Her body unties its knots. Her bones lock into place. Sand slithers up, kisses the soles of her feet. Languid gooseflesh scatters down her back. The sound of waves flows through the places where they touch. His hands move down her flanks and her breath rises, comes apart. He kisses her, loose and hot. She cinches his shirt into a noose. His tongue tastes like it’s been buried in her cunt. She tries to catch it with her teeth, to bite down, but it’s soft against hers and she can’t tell where hers ends and his begins.

He takes her down onto the sand. It shifts beneath her, falling away in places, cool and smelling of summer sun. Her cunt lolls in soft hunger. She peers into the sky, black and full of galaxies, rippling near the water with strange boreal lights.

He cuts her jean shorts off her legs. It is precise surgery, lines carved up the centers of her thighs until the denim falls away.

Noise echoes over the calm sea. Is it thunder?

He cuts the crown of roses from her hair.

_George_, she murmurs, unable to get a deep breath. _What’s that sound?_

Her tank top, sliced up the middle like a ribbon-cutting ceremony: it’s time to break ground.

_That sound_. She rustles on the sand. _There’s no rain._

He cuts off her nipple and it comes away like old leather. There is no blood. Her raw flesh prickles at the air. Her cunt swell. Her hips begin their restless churn.

_Do the other one_.

He leans on one arm and grins into her with his heat, bringing the blade close to skin that draws up into tight wrinkles. She labors with her breath. He carves it off her body and her toes curl. Her fingers walk up the back of his hair. He moves over her and he licks the fresh holes in her body, making her moan and she’s going to come again, this time with a clanging like—

The doorbell rings again. She opens her eyes. The afternoon light has faded into dusk, the rain stopped. Cold air, raw with moisture, moves across her feet. She closes the laptop and pushes it off her belly. She takes her cell phone off the coffee table, squinting at the display. As if activated by her touch it starts to vibrate.

“Hotch?”

“I’m at the door. Will you let me in?”

“Yeah.” She glances at the readout on the stereo. “What are you doing here so late?”

“It’s not that late.”

Emily gets up and walks toward the front door. “It’s late for you.”

“I have some paperwork to catch up on. I’ll probably be going back. Are you hungry?”

Her stomach growls. She opens the door, smells hot paper and red curry. “Yeah. Convenient.”

He hangs up the cell and holds up a bag. “I hope Thai is okay?”

“It’s perfect.” Emily grins. “Come on in. Don’t mind my…uh, grungies. If I’d known you were coming over I would’ve changed.”

Hotch steps inside. She closes the door.

“What should I do with the food?”

“Kitchen. Do you want anything to drink?”

“What do you have?”

“Water, juice, beer, soda. What is this about, anyway? It’s been awhile since you’ve showed up at my house.”

He walks into the kitchen and sets the bag down on the center island. He’s still wearing his work clothes,  suit jacket and tie in the car, shirt cuffs rolled up toward his elbows. He goes for the cabinets, hands opening doors and drawers on instinct. He takes down two plates. “I’ll have a beer.”

“Is Dos Equis all right?”

“Yeah.” A smile moves through his face. “More than all right.” He pulls open the staples, lifting Styrofoam cartons out of the bag. “I haven’t had Dos Equis in years.”

“Do you want it in the bottle or do you want it in a glass?”

“Glass.” He looks around and looks at her. “Where do we eat?”

Emily closes the refrigerator door, holding a pair of bottles dangling by their necks. “Usually I just eat on the couch, but I’m a slob.” She twists off a cap. “There’s a dining room if you want to use it.”

“The couch is fine by me.”

Emily pours his beer into a tall glass. Hotch carries the food and the plates out to the coffee table. Emily brings him his beer, sitting down at the end of the couch. She twists the cap off her bottle, takes a sip, and pulls a plate into her lap. She picks up a box and unfolds the top. “So what have we got here?”

“A little bit of everything.”

Emily helps herself.

“I know I can’t fool you and I hope you know that you can’t fool me.” He digs in with his fork. “We’re worried.”

“We?”

“Let’s just say that I was unanimously elected to this position.”

Emily folds her arms. She smiles. “A rescue mission.”

“Your words, not mine.”

She sighs and looks into her plate. “I’m okay.”

“Morgan says you’ve been spending a lot of time at the shooting range.” Hotch balances his plate on his knee. “Something tells me you aren’t overly concerned about passing your qualification.”

“No. I just like to shoot. It helps my stress.”

“Fair enough.”

Emily holds up her bottle. She tilts her head and smirks. “So…do you want to tell me all about your youthful adventures with Dos Equis?”

He grins and shakes his head. “Not much to tell. I drank a lot of it in college.”

“Oh, I see.” She takes a drink. “Now, you drank a lot of it…or you drank _a lot_ of it?”

He laughs. “I plead the fifth.”

“You can take the boy out of the prosecutor’s office…”

He stops her with his eyes. “We really are worried about you.”

“There’s.” She shakes her head. “Well, there’s nothing you need to worry about, let me put it that way.”

He put his plate aside. “Do you want to talk?”

“I want to eat.”

_Look at the lady in the glittery skirt._

“By all means.”

_Watch her pretty smile. Oooh and ahh at the billows of smoke. _

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my teen years.”

_There’s an explosion of whirring doves._

“I haven’t thought about them in a long time. It’s just…old stuff. You know.”

_Between that and the sequined cleavage, no one ever notices the switch._

He looks at her. “Matthew?”

“Yeah. Other stuff too.”

His eyebrows go up. “Care to share?”

“I don’t know if I told you this or not, but when I was a kid in Italy I found a body in a stream.” She pauses, takes another bite. “It was a rage murder. She had a boyfriend and this other guy didn’t like the idea. You know how it goes.”

“Yes.”

“I was a rebellious child, to put it lightly. My mother thought there was something wrong with me for wanting to dress up like a vampire and spend all my time with girls, so she made me go to this therapist. We talked a lot about Francesca, the therapist and I. That was her name.” Emily picks up her beer. “For a long time I wrote all these awful emo journal entries about it. Bad poetry, little weird stories, the whole works. It helped with the dreams. I had nightmares about it for years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know if you should be.” She pulls her legs up onto the cushions. “It’s probably how I ended up working for the BAU.”

“Are they back? The dreams?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Yeah.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know. The past, you know. It never stays there.”


	7. Death Is The Ultimate Woman

George listens from the darkness, boxed inside it, as Emily prepares for bed.

First there are lights turning off, winking out in her wake. The wood makes its own symphony, unique properties fashioned out of the age of the wood, its looseness around the nails that hold it, the sharpness of her feet channeling all of her weight down.

He listens to her feet, the half-groan half-sigh of the floorboards.

The house settles around her. It moves with her body. He leans his head against the wall, inside the closet; he feels it, the way the house knows her, how it comes to life. He reaches out, touches the drywall. The wallpaper like silk whispers to his fingers. He inhales. He knows the inside of her house when she is gone; it is a shell, he has seen how the light changes. When she is bled out of the house, it becomes a corpse.

Her shadow cuts through the thin line of light. She flashes past and he wonders at the smell of her skin. Her day job, clinging to it, the detergent from her clothes, memories of soap and lotion and shampoo lingering.

He wants to remember Francesca but he can’t. He thinks he should, feels it, but constructs something out of Emily’s words instead. A wavering picture, the scent of water, but it has no weight.

She enters the bathroom. Turns on the faucet. Water runs, pipes humming in the walls.

George knows her. He knows Emily Prentiss the same way he knows her house: she is a construction, a loving map laid out in words and shaded with a freight of meticulous emotion. He has to think about her breath, imagine it coming in and going out, to draw her out of the ether and pull her down into the grounded currents of his desire.

He wonders at her hair, how its dark thickness, those subdued waves, might look trapped in a fall of moonlight. Her breasts swell in his breath. His eyes close. He dismembers the effigy to make her real. He shifts inside the closet, his breath shallow. The air inside holds the heat of his body. She flashes in his veins.

Each sound she makes is a lighted match that burns through the mortar, lathes, paint and paper between them.

Emily brushes her teeth.

As a child he would ascend rusting fire escapes, climb through windows, seek refuge in closets and cedar chests and the dusty-aired spaces beneath beds. He would go into these other places, hunker down, disappear.

Time changed its rules for him. He turned himself into a shadow, sneaking in under a cover of slanting sunlight, sneaking out again among a sprinkle of city-smudged stars.

Even later, when the rough neighborhoods were gone, in a new home too big for three people and full of places to hide, he’d lie in bed and itch in phantom places. He’d think about the neighbor’s house, about windows framed in unfamiliar ways and the new darkness beyond the panes, how it was perfumed with silence and soothed by the ticking of a grandfather clock. He’d stare at the smooth ceiling, yearn to feel the softness of time all over his skin.

She walks downstairs in the dark. The sound of her movement fades and he guesses the rooms as she walks into them: living room, kitchen, mechanical sound like the refrigerator door opening. A cabinet closes. Smooth silence.

George’s mind goes to Siasconset.

Going there every year was like climbing through a small blue window into melted stretching summer hours, jumping out of the city’s routine and into a still-life. That weathered house high on the bluff, trembling in the wind, choked with roses.

Drifting into the memories is easy. Every place has its own rules but Nantucket’s only rule was the sea, a cold boundary pressing in on the sun. Each day was the same but not the same. Swap out the walls, the weather, and the truth remains: a part of him is still there, but that part is really a door, a hole shrouded in fog and baptized by the sand’s gritty kiss.

With a bit of focus, he can go through it, glide into salty wind like a river. Swap out his wrinkled skin and his gray hairs and this truth remains: he leans over a girl, reads the starlight in her hair. He finds galaxies in her eyes. The wind, fresh off the water, cuts into her cheekbones and makes them pale. Her mouth is chilled pink, a ripened door. The violence of his existence has pulled him into this moment. A cold breast of water wears a shroud of fog. Here, he can be still. An island of darkness beneath him, adrift on a white sea. The walls shake and here, inside the dark, on the bed, underneath a moaning roof, it’s just one long day forever and ever amen.

Emily climbs the stairs. The light goes out.

He unfolds numb legs. Sensation fills his feet with tingling, ticklish bursts. The rustle of his clothes penetrates the silence.

He waits.

Sometimes Emily reads in bed. Sometimes she leaves her little television on, falling asleep to the promises of late night hucksters.

He is good at waiting.

He pulls away the thick tussocks of grass, sharp green blades scrawling shallow cuts into his fingers. A setting sun fills the air with orange light.

George is not aware that he’s asleep.

The roots are tough. He takes out his knife, cuts through them. Beneath the interlaced mat of roots the sand is soft. It tumbles free, its texture like soft cake and darkened with moisture, falling in crumbs on his knees.

Underneath the dunes there are bones. Long bones, old bones from his childhood.

He reaches into the cool earth, pulls one out. It’s a femur, long and ivory-colored, smelling of calcified salt. In the instant before the dune collapses, he sees the skeleton laid out, a bridge of vertebrae connecting pelvis to skull, shoulder blades cocked like wings, neck arched as it was in death.

His cock stands up hard in his jeans.

The wind hums in the grass and smells like cold water. Sand falls in clumps. He leans forward and the bones come apart in his arms. They fall into his lap, an embrace dissembled. He cradles them.

He wakes with the taste of roses in his mouth: white, soft, wet, blossoms of memory falling into salty ruin. His limbs are cold and stiff.

He sits up. His neck aches and he reaches behind, massaging the tight muscles. He knows by the quality of the darkness, by its smooth solidity, that there are no lights on in the house.

He stands, tilting his head to avoid a rack of empty hangers. He opens the closet door, holds his breath to listen to the turn in the hinges. He moves into the room on a tide of air. Blue streetlight falls in through tree branches, agitated by the wind among the twigs.

There is a moon like white roses. He sees them in a drift, fragile, transparent and bruised where a brisk rainfall loved them too hard.

Like Emily’s skin.

In her raft of shadows she’s so white, skin like ribbons in the moonlight. His breath comes and goes. She’s on her stomach, the sheets down around her hips. Her hair a tangled drift. Her alabaster back rises and falls. He watches her, sees his hand drifting out over her white sea, the blade sharp. The burn inside him is bitter on his tongue.

Inside the dream his hand doesn’t tremble. He cuts curved red lines into the skin, each over each, drawing spread wings made of blood.

Outside the dream, he comes closer to her door. His breath catches.

Emily is awake. Her breath beats like wings. The sheets slide over one another.

His breath comes faster.

He peers around the doorframe. He sees weak light caught from the window and scattered in pools across the blankets. She is on her belly, springs murmuring beneath the rich flexion of her spine. The air trembles, heated by her skin. Her hips scoop forward, thighs slipping on the cotton, feet churning it into knots. Her forearm, strung tight as a bow, quivers up and down.

His groin gets tighter and tighter. His teeth grind.

A cry tears loose from her throat.

He folds a hand over it, watching her elbow plow through the dark, her face rubbing into the rumpled pillow.

Her body tightens, squeezes her breath into a moist shout.

In his mind he watches her hand slide out from beneath her, his knife clutched in her hand, blood on the blade and then thick moisture slicking up the handle, blood/juice, a murderous rapture.

The atmosphere settles. She is limp on the mattress, gasping back to life. He smells the mineral tang of her sweat, smooth like the inside of a shell, weak scent of the sea. His fingers curl and through the crotch of his pants he feels the rapid pulse of his cock. The faint bittersweet smell of her cunt rises into the warm air. Leaning into the wall, cheek pressed into the molding of the doorframe, he closes his eyes and listens to the changes in her breath, how it swells and recedes, stretching out into the long seconds and filling them.

_See her body. This space is her own. It was given to her at birth and she occupied it throughout her life and even now, in death, she retains her claim. It will be so until the flesh decays, until the bones crumble into dust. The ignorant will say that the soul flies away and no longer holds the flesh together. That without the soul, without its purity and the spin of its rapid subatomic photons, the body disintegrates and sends its food back into the earth. But it’s not the soul, George. It’s the space._

Emily, at rest inside her space. This place, this boat of existence sailing the rivers of time, is skin stretched smooth and soft over the flesh braced against her long New England bones.

He thinks of his father.

_Think of the Middle Ages. People thought that a sneeze was the body’s way of expelling demons. Now, we know that there are no such things as demons. Just the same, it remains a truth: the sneeze is the body’s way of expelling illness. There are demons after all, and they live in the tiny forms of germs. Single cells without brains or will; viruses even tinier than bacteria, envelopes packed with rogue and replicating DNA. So you see, George, how something can be true and false at the same time._

The pale body of the woman. Cold light, silver light stained by steel and sharpened by the chill. She died middle-aged, black Y-incision marring the delicate bluish tint of her skin, chaste sheet folded down over her breasts.

His patron, John Foyet, with steady blue eyes looking at him, dressing him down, turning him out to see how he filled his own space. Dr. John Foyet, watching him out of a Yankee face that was enough like his own so strangers saw them together and read it as the mark of shared blood.

His father’s hands folded, his eyes looking down the length of the shrouded bodyscape.

In this memory, George is ten years old.

He pulls back the sheet. A frisson passes through him, hot and numb, his organs disobeying gravity for the handful of seconds it takes for the sheet to clear her skin: death is the ultimate woman.

_Death, _his father says_. It is nothing to be afraid of._


	8. Nantucket

Emily watches the turn of the water, a stretch of beach sweeping out as the plane banks. The horizon tilts. She leans back into the seat. The steady loss of altitude lifting up through her ribs.

_How do you attract a shark?_

She seeks a glimpse of her hotel, but the bird’s-eye view is disorienting.

_Throw some blood into the water._

Cars are toys, buildings flattened into geometric shapes. The sun reflects up off the water, shatters into shards of blinding light.

_It has to be my blood, but that’s okay_. She squints at the land, recognizing the shape of a lighthouse. _This shark is a fly, drawn to anything sweet_.

Emily thinks of Francesca floating. Who knows how many nights she spent looking out the window, over the stars, searching for the trees that bordered Francesca’s family property. Like their outline might spell out some secret.

Emily wanted to talk to someone, to ask if this was normal, but there was no one. Her mother, stony and silent at the dinner table, when she was there at all. Her father, mysterious and strange in his manhood, a foreign country no passport would grant passage to. She wrote letters instead and tucked them away, the written word soothing long before the therapist came and instructed her in the ways of keeping a journal.

How she would wake in the middle of the nigh, gasping.

The plane lands. Air rushes off the water, cold and raw. Emily pulls her sweater tight. A shuttle waits to take her to the luxurious little inn.

The roads of Nantucket twist and turn upon the dunes like a snake fighting the encroachment of the sea.

This is perfect. Here is a broad beach, here is dune grass growing like hair out of the sand. Above it all, an open sky full of sunshine.

Here on the waterfront is the representation of all bedrooms, perfect and warm, furnishings appointed with functional beauty and arranged to trick the eye into maximum comfort. It is a tableau; this room looks like a dream until she steps into it, and then it is no longer a dream. It enters reality, spun out of the presence of her flesh. The clock ticks harsh seconds into life.

She puts down her bags. Panes of glass rattle with the breath of the sea.

Emily changes her clothes. She thinks of a shower but pulls on the sundress and sandals, ignores the film of canned airline air upon her skin.

At the restaurant there is the kind of food she hasn’t eaten for years, things grown in a local garden, cutlets fished out of the frozen Atlantic and served with truffle butter. She’s hungry. She knows the food will be fresh, the flavors painstaking and arranged to complement one another.

As she brushes her hair into a ponytail, she remembers the first time she had fish chowder, plain and simple. A moody summer day, sullen and cold, the sound of waves turned funny in the banks of fog and white light everywhere, sun pounding down through the mist. No tomatoes in the broth, none of that distant kinship with bouillabaisse: just cream and butter, onion and milk, potatoes and codfish so fresh she imagined it flopping on the cutting board in the kitchen.

At first, Emily thought about the moments leading up to Francesca’s death. She wondered.

Could she have known somehow that morning, when she got out of bed and began her daily rituals, that by midnight she would be dead? As she bathed did she think of the stream, of swimming in it, the sound of splashing water filling her with idle recollection of simple childhood pleasures? _How_ would she know? A sense of foreboding perhaps, a cloud over her heart. Déjà vu, spinning and somber, as she crossed the stream on her way to work. Did Francesca’s last breath taste of sleeping thyme, cooling in the darkness after a long day of heat, and the frothing spray of green water, or did it taste like her lover’s mouth, polluted by his supper and tainted by the wine bottle he’d been mouthing? Did she die in anger and fear, or was it over so quickly that the various triggers of her body had no time to fire?

Young Emily tried to conjure up this level of fear, such a wholesome and total yearning for life, such scrabbling desperation, but her measure of years made a poor yardstick.

Much later, Emily told herself the stories of what might have been: Francesca growing old, sitting in the sun with a basket of figs in her lap. Francesca in the market and heavy on her feet, belly round and pregnant beneath a cotton dress. Francesca running away to France, studying painting at the Sorbonne, making love to her girlfriends in the afternoon and to her boyfriends at night. Francesca making bread in a restaurant’s kitchen. Francesca dancing barefoot on a moonlit beach, reading stories to her children, teaching her granddaughters how to grow tomatoes, how to organize a bookshelf. Francesca dying slow, at home in her well-worn marriage bed, her gray-haired daughters feeding her soup with a wooden spoon.

By the time she got halfway through college, Emily was hip-deep in psychology. She learned that she was projecting all of her own different selves onto a myth of what-might-have-been, using the memory of Francesca to act out all of the lives she might never have. Emily constructed those fantasies out of a wish to counterweigh the other things, the secret things and the painful things, tight threads that bound all of her darkest selves to a woman who had been no more than a cutout in the background of her childhood until death made her so much more: a dark doppelganger, a siren, a succubus wrought of nightmares and shameful lust.

Emily decided the stories in an act of contrition. She wanted to make peace with Francesca’s life, to understand her own childhood, to keep the haunts at bay.

_Guys like Foyet don’t understand that_. She follows the path up to the restaurant, vibrant green thickets of beach roses rambling alongside. The sugary scent blows into her face. Surf hisses into the sand. The restaurant’s pavilion is open, but no one’s dining al fresco. Wind snaps at the edges of the umbrellas. The inside of the restaurant is full of firelight. _I don’t know_. _Maybe they do, in their own way_.

All those lives ended at another’s hand, all those filmstrips cut short. Emily’s blood is heavy in her veins, slow and hot.

_It still frustrates me. _She thinks of cherries weighing down wet branches, famine in one year but a fusillade of fruit in another, all those sweet red bombs falling. _Perhaps I’m not so far gone as I thought_.

Emily takes a small table by the window. She orders lobster tails with white cornbread stuffing and watches the place where water yields to sand. The waiter brings her a glass of white wine. The beach is empty so early in the season. The waters are choppy, whipped into whitecaps. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be warm, almost hot, but today it’s still spring.

The waiter places a cup of chowder before her. She puts the wineglass down and holds it for a moment, the thick porcelain warming the tips of her fingers.


	9. Blood In The Water

DON’T.

Emily sits on the bed, the note in her hand as she watches the sky darken.

_Don’t what? Don’t talk? Don’t walk? Don’t think?_

There’s a lot of blackness waiting to roll out of the night. Waiting behind the horizon, drifting out over the water, settling there, calming the waves. The city lights are a memory. The island lights are votives, prayers lit against the inevitability of nightfall.

Her phone rings. She picks it up.

“Hey. I see you made it all right. So how’s the weather up north?”

“Hey, Derek,” she says. “Not bad. A little cool, but it’s supposed to warm up sometime tomorrow. How about you?”

“I can’t complain. It’s been nice.”

“Glad to hear it. How’s the team?”

“Getting along. We miss your smiling face, though.”

Emily laughs. “Sure. Sure you do.”

“Enjoy your time off. Relax. Don’t think about us. That’s an order, and that one comes directly from Hotch. Drink lots of Cape Codders and get a couple of hunks in trunks to serve them to you.” He laughs. “_That_ one comes directly from Penelope.”

Emily chuckles and walks to the window. “How is everybody?”

“Hotch is working. Well, we’re all working, but Hotch is pulling extra. Not that you should be surprised or anything. Penelope and I are thinking about taking Reid out to a club this weekend. We need to blow the stink off him, you know? Get him out of that library he calls an apartment even if it takes chains to do it. Oh, and Rossi’s freaky girlfriend is in town. Haven’t seen much of his mug around for the last couple of days.”

“Hey,” says Emily. “I like Rhiannon.”

“I like her too, don’t get me wrong,” says Morgan. “But that girl’s custom made, if you know what I’m saying.”

“Yeah, I do. She’s one of a kind, all right.”

“She and Reid are going to some mythology lecture this weekend.” He laughs. “Reid’s been quoting Joseph Campbell at me all day long.”

“You know Reid.”

“Yeah. Listen, if anything serious goes down, someone will call you. We won’t keep you out of the loop. Okay?”

“I appreciate it, Derek. Thanks.”

“I’ll see you when you get back. Night.”

“Good night.” She hangs up and tosses the phone onto the bed.

Her feet itch for the beach. She steps into a pair of sandals, leaves the room behind. The cold raw dark envelops her, wind pushing at her front as she moves through the dunes. She walks down to the place where the water thins out. She looks up, sees more stars than she has seen in her entire lifetime, and though she knows a sky like this one belongs in dreams, it’s as real as the cold under her feet, the sand between her toes, the tang of salt in the air.

Emily starts to walk.

Two things fight for primacy in her mind: a memory of herself as a teenager on this beach, sneaking away for a single untrammeled breath, and the fantasy of her phone ringing, how she would answer, remembering that day as she did it, the fog, the strangeness of her young voice caught inside it. The smell of things stranded at low tide, cooking to death in the heat. Foyet’s voice, low and filthy and cozening, surveying the mild curve of this beach with her feet in the dark as she half-dreamed about the foggy light, the wind sideways in her hair and drawing goosebumps on her legs.

Her voice, drowning in the sounds of wind and surf, asking where he is, feeling his answer even as the words escaped her mouth; she would hold her phone in tight fingers and remember how much she’d hated being here, cut off from the world, tasting those memories, boundaries stretching and made out of time, meditating on her old unseasoned bitterness.

She imagines him hiding in the dunes, on his belly, he and the earth flesh to flesh. She imagines him watching and sees herself as the object of his voyeurism, letting the knowledge walk into her with conscious ease, the dozing sensitivity in her skin awakening and swapping stories with her bones. Being that girl: hot, restless, trying to taunt something out of the night.

_And then…what?_

The beach breaks into a broad sandbar that curves back toward the mainland. She keeps the lights at her back, feels them recede. Her feet deliver her deeper into the dark. More stars come out, burning in swarms. She pauses to take off her sandals. The water hits her toes, cold enough to numb. She stands still, sandals dangling from her fingers, and looks toward the dunes.

In her mind, she is alone on a deserted and undeveloped stretch of beach with George Foyet. She is moving, ethereal and hot, in the frame of his regard. She is soft. She is trembling.

Thinking about the girl she was, an unsettled teenager who played with knives and dreamed dreams of hot blades and yearned for someone to come along and excise her from the body of her life, cut her out like a tumor, eat her alive—none of these things shield her from the facts. That long-gone girl is not a talisman. She will not break free from her cage of years and storm the beach. Those carefully rationed memories are not bullets. Out here, in the black, beside the water, she is unarmed.

_Nowhere to run, baby, and nowhere to hide. Not a soul out here to hear you scream_.

The thought does not frighten as much as it should. There’s relief in the blunt truth: no interference, no prying eyes, no interest but her own. Just him, just her, standing on opposite sides of the darkness with all those things silted up between them: roses and dreams, horror and burning, the fury of a touch, the cold smooth longing of a bullet. The twitch in a trigger finger and breath. All these things in an empty space carved out of ocean winds.

_This is lover’s language. These are the words of the obsessed. _

Emily tosses her sandals up onto the dry sand. She squats, lets her fingertips trail in the water. The cold comes up into her blood and counterbalances her raging heat.

_Okay, okay. Why not? Isn’t it all engineered this way? Isn’t this the rightful fruit of all his labor? The parallels between obsession and desire are bold and highlighted and obvious. Hell, they aren’t even parallels. They’re the same thing wearing different clothes._

The impulse to run locks up inside her feet. She looks at the water, feels its darkness change; invitation in its turn and turnabout dance, dread from the left and temptation on the right.

DON’T.

_Don’t what? Take the things inside me to Hotch, spread them out on a towel to dry? Tell, like we’re a couple of naughty children? _

She submerges her hands. Her fingers ripple, pale beneath the rushing water. The water backs up at her wrists, yanks sand out from beneath her palms. Everything about the ocean is made to knock you off balance.

_Perhaps he didn’t make me his conspirator. Perhaps I wanted to step into that role._

Emily stands. She looks at the starlit crests of the waves, mantles of white foam rolling into the land.

She takes off her shorts. She flings them up past her sandals and runs full bore into the waves, charging them, challenging their rhythm with her body. The icy cold is a shock. She screams, the sudden drop in temperature slapping her into wakefulness. Water splashes off the fronts of her thighs, flies all the way up to her mouth. She gags at the salt. Waves plow into her knees and she trips, going down, flung under and into a spinning world, filled with the roaring of primitive gods. Grains of sand scrape her face. She surfaces into shearing wind, wracked with chills. She looks back toward the land.

“Blood in the water,” she whispers, wondering if her lips are blue. “There’s blood in the water.”

Emily lifts her gaze to heaven. A single thin star loses its grip on the sky and she watches it fall, shedding parts of itself, surrendering to the pull of gravity.

_This place is a temple_, her mind whispers. _The sky is the altar and I am the sacrifice_.

Her entrails fold into obscure languages, whisper the future.

“God, I know we haven’t been on speaking terms for…well, years.” Her teeth chattering, her nipples cold pebbles. “But if you’re really there and not just a mythical construct, please. I want to make it through the night.”

George’s voice whispers inside her ear: _You disappoint me_.

The heat twists through her body, wrings her flesh into goosebumps. It lands on her tongue and tastes like shame. It tastes like other things.


	10. Drinks

Emily zips up a black cocktail dress and steps into a pair of kitten heels. She wraps her hair into a loose knot, tucks her gun and her credentials into her purse, walks into the bar at seven o’clock. With reddened lips, shaded eyes, and the borrowed poise of tasteful jewelry, she moves through air splintered by the sounds of cutlery.

She takes a seat at the bar. In the mirror, people come and go. She glimpses herself, held hostage between a bottle of gin and a bottle of brandy. She cultivates a mysterious smile. The panoramic windows frame a sky that is fading of cobalt by way of striated pale pinks and easing itself into pewter.

The darkening sea looks tranquil, but inside it are riptides.

Men drift up to her. They come in all ages, all sizes. Most of them are rich and some of them are filthy rich, the shapes of their bank accounts lurking in bespoke collars, perfect diction, hidden on the soles of handmade Italian loafers. They offer her drinks. They invite her to dinner. They hint at clandestine adventures, but she disarms all of them with a soft tilt of the head and the same crafted smile. She sends them like a blown kiss back out into the night, chases their retreats with a gracious apology: _I’m waiting for someone._

“You clean up nice.”

She turns.

George is dressed in a black shirt, pressed khaki pants, a pair of leather sandals. The top button is undone, the cuffs loosened and turned back. His hair is combed back, parted on one side, the sideburns like razors; his skin is scraped free of shadow, his cheeks smooth, his dimples snoozing. The crease in his pants breaks at the knee. His heel balances on the lowest rung. He leans back, drapes a forearm on the bar. He looks her over.

The sweat beneath her dress turns cold. His subtle scent shivers along her skin. “How long have you been on island?”

“Long enough.” He takes her hand and his fingers are warm, the palm soft.

Emily looks at the back of his wrist. “Don’t you think this is a little much?”

“No.” His thumb brushes her knuckles. “This moment is sweet.”

She looks up. “Oh?”

He starts to smile. “It’s so much better than Shaughnessy.”

She pulls her hand out of his. “Are you sure about that?”

“That stuff about Francesca.” He leans an elbow onto the bar, rests his cheek in his hand. “About imagining her dead heart under your fingers.” He looks in her eyes. “Was it true?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think it was.” He runs a light finger down the back of her arm, his eyes following the course of his fingertip. “I think you liked telling me.” He starts to smile. “Did you like telling me, Emily?”

The fine hairs stiffen. He grins, brushes their tips with the backs of his fingers. Each sound in the dining room rises up, sharpens into focus; each clink of waterlogged ice whispers along the insides of her thighs, the scrape of silverware gliding through the roots of her hair. Overlapping voices ride her rising pulse.

He leans closer, his fingers falling across the inside of her knee. Her ribs spread in a sudden deep breath. The sensation releases heat into her bloodstream. She moves a hand over his wrist and he moves his mouth in close to her ear. His nails stroke the side of her calf. Ice forms in her loins. Her breath hits the back of her throat and her clit aches, dull, a bruise throbbing through the cold.

He keeps his mouth close to her cheek. “I think it’s time to get out of here,” he whispers.

He slides a hand onto the small of her back. Her fingers tighten around his forearm.

She turns toward him but keeps her eyes on the bartender. “Are you sure about that?”

The shape of his smile weaves through the sound of his breath. “Yeah.”

She glances at his belt. “Are you armed?”

“You wanna pat me down?”

“Yeah. I do.”

He looks at her mouth. “You don’t want to do that here,” he murmurs. “Do you?”

Emily turns away from George, beckons the bartender.

He walks over.

“Can I get a glass of wine?”

“Your usual?”

Emily’s smile hesitates, turns dazzling. Her eyebrows lift. “Yes.”

“How about you, sir?”

“Glenlivet 21.” George’s thumb rubs the seam of her zipper. “Neat.”

The bartender nods. “Very good.”

“So.” Emily looks down. With a light finger, she draws a lazy circle around the kneecap. “Who was your first?”

George’s eyebrows lift. He watches her hand. “My first?”

She leans over, murmurs into his ear: “Kill.”

He lowers his voice. “You think I’m gonna tell you that?”

The bartender uncorks a bottle and pours a glass of white wine. Emily leans back, picks it up. She takes a long sip. “Will you tell me how old you were?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

A corner of his mouth curls. “It’s not in my profile.”

The bartender puts down a napkin, centers the glass of Scotch on top of it. Emily returns the long-stemmed glass to the bar. “You want to know how I imagine it?”

George picks up the Scotch. “Yeah.” He smiles. “I’d like to know.”

“When I imagine it,” she says, swallowing, “I see a girl.” She looks into the dark of his eyes. “She’s young and fair-skinned, long limbed, just barely grown into adulthood. Sometimes she’s blonde, sometimes she’s brunette, and her hair is always long and straight. A nice girl from a nice neighborhood.” She slides a hand onto the bar, feels for the wine glass; she retrieves it by the stem. “You aren’t much older. Not even old enough to drink.” She sips. “You’re a good-looking boy from the right family, so getting her interested is easy.”

George watches her face over the rim of his glass.

“There’s a knife. You’ve had it for a couple of years. It’s never cut anything. You’ve taken it out, rested the blade on your pulse just to imagine what it would feel like, but it’s not the same. You can’t know that yet, but you know that some things are all instinct.” Emily puts the glass down. “The first time is always messy and you’re no exception. You can’t catch the arteries on the first swipe and once you’ve pulled away the power is gone and she runs. You think maybe you should’ve used the knife beforehand, you know, let the handle and your palm get to know each other.” She licks her lips. “Maybe you should’ve picked a different tool.”

His eyes follow the twist of her body, how the narrative rides her skin.

“It takes some chasing and wrestling but in the end you get it done. The stink of her blood, the minerals inside it, fill your nose. Maybe that’s what makes you come in your shorts. Maybe it isn’t. Perhaps the resistance of flesh against the blade does that when you start stabbing her. When you’re done maybe you wash up in the sea and drag the body out into the rip-currents. Maybe you dump her in the Charles River and burn your clothes in a trashcan fire. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the…what? The scratched itch? The new calm? The bright colors in the world?”

George’s lips part. He licks them.

“This is how I see it: this girl, walking through your life and signaling with the flow of her limbs that she wants to be broken. Her hair, giving off a scent that only you can smell. She’s like a zebra.” She pauses. “Can’t fight nature.”

“Is that how you see yourself, Emily?” He takes a drink. “A lost girl who smells like…vulnerability?”

She chuckles, shakes her head. “No. I’m the woman with the sunglasses and the video camera, composing voice-overs in my head.”

George looks at the curve of her neck. “I wish it had been like that.”

She tips back the last of her wine. “Oh…you mean it wasn’t?”

“No.”

She sets down the empty glass. “Was I even close?”

“Did you like telling me?”

“Yes.” The corners of her mouth curl. “I liked it.”

He leans forward, lets his face hovers over hers. Her breath underlines the trembling seconds and with a tilt of her head she pushes aside the remaining distance. She cups the back of his neck, slides her hand up. The kiss is tentative.

He puts his hands on her face. “Time to go,” he whispers.


	11. There Once Was A Girl (I)

_There once was a girl on Nantucket. She left her career and then chucked it. Reaped and then sown, she sank like a stone; she stared at the sand and thought—fuck it._

The last cobalt streaks hover, lingering in the sky over the water. She smells fog threatening to unroll itself across the land and bury her sense of hearing in its strange pale echo chamber. Her footsteps retreat.

Emily doesn’t have a car and he’s staying on the other side of the island, far back and away from the beaches, so she follows him out into the parking lot.

The constant whine of wind is cut off by the closing door.

She puts her purse in her lap. She situates it there, its weight heavy and snug on her thighs. She puts her hand inside, fingers the shape of the gun, reads the curves and lines of its deadly intent. Its sleek message is arousing. She fondles the trigger guard, looks out the window; the blood in her loins rises, steals the shape of the familiar landscape and refashions it out of shadow.

George starts the engine. It rumbles up through her. A cluster of stars vibrates in the side view mirror.

The car pulls back. Broken shells crunch beneath the tires. There’s a sensation of free-fall, a smooth drop into soft sea air. The headlights cut a swath through a clump of dune roses. Withered petals cling to the gravel, beaten into the ground by hard rain. She breathes in the fake pine-tinged scent of his skin, washed in the ghosts of old cigarettes. Emily withdraws the gun from her purse. The grip rests in her curled fingers. He glances at it. The car rolls over a pothole and they both sway. She looks at him.

“How do I know there isn’t a weapon stashed over there somewhere?”

He chuckles. “You don’t.”

“That’s right.” Her voice drops. “I don’t.”

Street light flashes across his face. “I want to show you something.”

“Does that line work for you?”

The tires cling to each bend in the road. He steers them like dance partners. He chuckles. “Do you want to see it?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“I think you’ll find it interesting.”

The car rolls through more beach land, passes ranks of salt-worn houses with their sculpted shrubs and quaint little gardens. It abandons the quiet side streets for town and Emily shies away from the crowded streetlights, the shapes of people walking inside the fallen pyramids of light, the storefronts like cut-rate televisions offering freeze-frames of a culture that never existed.

Passing though is just passing through and they shoot out of town and under the cover of natural darkness, a shroud of heavy blue light falling back into place.

Emily looks out the window, each turn and rounded bend familiar, rising up out of the dark parts of her mind. It makes her uneasy.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise. I think you’ll like it.”

The road coming at them unfurls like a ribbon, twisting and then flattening, skimming close to houses and a glimpse of moon-polished water beyond. There are trees too, evergreen, pulled of shape by the constant winds. She imagines the harsh kicking openers of downeast storms hitting this side, slamming the beaches first and then screaming through the old trees.

“I know this place,” she murmured.

“Do you?” The car slowed.

A tired girl, a nosy girl, one teenage morning lost in the rolling banks of fog. The warped trees looking like punishments handed out by nature’s jury and the new liquid of sound, voices turned into currents by the mist and carving their own strange and unpredictable courses. The sun is no ally.

Sleeping in one of those broken empty houses she’d awakened to—what?

Adrenaline puckers the inside of Emily’s mouth. The surge of it comes out of the dark, coated in the stink of its own fear and loathing.

He slows the car. She looks around.

The harsh tingle migrates into her muscles, winds them up, sets off a cascade of twitching. He steers the car into a deep parking slot, gravel patch running alongside the long flank of a salt-silvered house buried in white pines. He pushes the headlights into a raggedy bank of white beach roses, kills the engine. The whispering of the ocean rushes in to fill the silence and the sigh of wind in the twisted trees settles in waves over the roof.

She pushes on the handle and jumps out, slamming the door, her limbs like an animal’s, close to the ground and one with its changing presence.

“It’s not much,” said George. “But it’s something I’ve got.”

Emily hears him like a machine: parse, code, file away. She drifts toward the water, a shadow on the flank of the house. She disappears into the black yard.

She swallows the memories, digesting the good stuff. Burps up a taste of cellar and roses. Empty whistling beach full of cold and confusion.

_All around her thick and deep, star-speckled, sanded down by the sounds of waves, are drifts of darkness. Houses like shells perch in scrub pines and cranky wild rose bushes, whistling empty in the constant wind_.

He is there, behind her, his hand a tight circle around her upper arm. He tries to lead but with her feet she knows where she’s going.

_I know this place. _Each footfalls breaks something open, releases broken words into the center of her mind. _I know it like the aftertaste of a nightmare_. Her breath comes quick and steady, ventilating her, pumping the darkest parts of her blood full of oxygen. Her center of gravity drops and her cunt gets heavy, hot as lead, held up by the cheap guywires of her tendons. She stumbles through lacy darkness, past the house, down into a thicket of warped trees.

A view of the beach flashes before her eyes and there’s more of that falling, her soul clicking, her feet heavy enough to be real.

“This,” says George, voice turning down low, husking up at the edges, warm like the scent of blood coming off a fresh kill, “this is what I have for you, Emily.” His fingers spread on her shoulders, squeezing them, and his face is close. “This.” His breath mingles with her breath, warms the edges of her nostrils. “You don’t remember, do you?”

But she _does_ remember. She _does_.

There was something, carved out of an early morning and stippled with sunlight, that cold New England fog and everything it touches slimy, even the sand. She looks into the darkness behind him and sees a morning, dark ground…and something’s wrong.

“I don’t,” she breathes. “I don’t quite…I _do_, but I can’t get all of it.”

Coming up out of the abandoned cellar, into a billowing bank of mist sliced through by the sun’s hot dawn rays, like chinks in the armor, little blades of white light striking the ground and quivering in the dark.

She looks in a circle around them. “Something happened.”

George takes her in his arms. His body heat speaks to hers and his heat and her heat knot up together until his skin slides beneath her lips. He cradles the back of her head, tilts her chin. His voice surrounds her face, thoughtful and husky, its low pitch crawling up the insides of her legs and burrowing itself in her cunt.

Her eyes close. She breathes hard. The closeness makes it difficult to think.

“I’ll tell you how it was,” George murmurs, hands sliding up beneath her cheeks, holding the sea-cold away from her skin. His breath wets her lips. “I’ll tell you about him. Just a guy, just a nobody, some kid from the mainland and there wasn’t any choosing either.” His breath quickens. “He was like a shadow.”

Her hair drifts loose and he catches it, moves it away from her face.

“I don’t know why. Maybe he liked me. Maybe he wanted to fuck me. I dunno. The first time, it’s like an opportunity you can’t throw back into the water. It’s there, it’s in your face, screaming that you know what to do, and yeah.” He presses his mouth into her neck. “Everyone knows that, even you, even the five year old who wants to get up early so he can make a sand castle, even the meter guy who doesn’t dare touch his harpy wife.” He pants against her skin. “I did have a knife, you were right about that, and it was sharp and I’d never used it before, but it’s easy when you’re just horsing around, you know, a little homoerotic wrestling to start the day just fine.”

He rubs her nipples and she gets hard all over, stiff and wrinkled, the blood slamming into her sensitive places. He loosens her straps, folds down her bodice. He catches the spill of her breasts.

She moans.

“I got him on his stomach and brought my fist around, a neat arc from ear to ear.” He bites into the curve of her neck, teeth gentle, tongue soft, erratic breath rubbing like steamed velvet. “Blood sprayed everywhere. I held him down, you know, keeping him on the ground so the blood wouldn’t track all over the place.”

She gasps. He hauls her hips up into his groin. She whimpers.

“The muscles misfire. Holding him down like that, feeling the fish-flop in his bones…it was a lot like riding a hot one, you know, a girl who’s really into it. I laid on him until he stopped moving.” He pulls up her skirt, gropes between her thighs. “You feel the life spurt out, riding all that blood.” His slippery fingertips bump her clit. “Mmmm, Em,” he half-breathes, half-moans into her neck. “It was so good. So good.” He strokes. “The best. If I’d known you…”

He pulls back, holds his mouth against her panting breath.

“If I’d known you were down there in that basement…” He falls to his knees, buries his face in her thighs. “You coulda had him.” The words muffled, his voice humming past her pubic bone. “When I was done with him.”

She closes her eyes, drifting back and forth, half in and half out of the world, the threads of her past and present weaving, calling the darkness out of her blood. She falls back into the following afternoon, late, the sky purple and sliding down into the sea like a rotten plum, the taste of brimstone clinging to the wind; there are maggots, the memory of them writhing on the smoothed stained earth, hundreds of maggots making her lightheaded with nausea, making her crotch pulse in a way she didn’t understand.

Panting, strung out on adrenaline, she grabs a handful of his hair with a trembling hand and pulls his forehead into the round opening at the tip of her gun.

_There once was a girl._

His tongue digs, lifting up beneath her clit and there’s a deep spasm of heat. Juice floods the insides of her thighs, drips off his chin. It smells like electricity gone amok in a hayfield. So much heaviness, dead blood in the dirt, the menstrual period of a thunder goddess. He tilts her hips, lets out a long deep smothered moan. His voice quivers into her edges. Her breath goes ragged. She presses the gun into his scalp.

_There once was a girl on Nantucket. Her memory grew ripe and he plucked it. Oh look what I found, there’s blood on the ground; she sharpened his knife and he stuck it._

Hot breath in her crotch, creeping mist stealing her voice through a welter of water droplets; she remembers the rain needling down out of the sky, cold and bitter, beating the maggots and grinding them into the dirt.

She leans into a tree. Her hips ride his face, her head lolling, her lungs filling; she pushes out a long hard moan—_AH!_—that mingles with the busy trees, up where their leaves rub together, the wind shearing in off the water, deep and forgotten stones grinding in her cunt. She’s so hot, so loose; she melts down the insides of her legs, pours herself down his throat. The tight hard pulse in her groin turns inside out, strikes sparks in her voice. She hums a secret syntax of emotion.

_There once was a girl on Nantucket. Her will fell apart so she shucked it. Haunted by mist, bloodstains on her wrists; he pulled out her shame and he sucked it._

He sucks on her clit. The neurons in her body light up, a slow drag and pop of firecrackers. The fingers wrapped around the gun get tight, blanch at the corners. Her breath flutters. The metal trembles against his skull.

_In the basement sleeping don’t wanna go home don’t want the cutesy nautical touches on the walls or the empty cereal bowls she likes it out here because it’s nowhere and the dark is scary_

He spreads her, holds her open and he drives his tongue down through the bottom of her furrow, lifts it to the tight ticking pulse in her clit; too much oxygen drifts up past her burning cheeks, buoys the inside her head. It swirls, tight and trembling, in the corners of her eyes.

_It’s all wrong up here the shadows have gone backward and no sound a lot of blood stirred into the ground_

“You like that?”

She struggles to get a breath. “Y-Yes.”

“Mmmmmm.”

Her orgasm claws its way out of his mouth. When it comes, it blacks out the world.

_There once was a girl on Nantucket. A hot hour came and she struck it. Afraid she would drown, she whispered it down, and how did she do it? She fucked it._


	12. Say My Name

With trembling fingers, Emily disengages the clip.

He stands. “What are you doing?”

She flings it into the deep dark trees. She points the gun at the ground, pulls back the slide, levers the remaining bullet out of the chamber.

Pine needles shifting beneath his feet and their sweetness lulls in her breath.

She reaches up, wipes his mouth with her palm. He gathers up her face, tilts her head back, and kisses her. She sighs. The joints in her fingers tremble. The kiss deepens. The bullet falls, tumbles onto the pine needles. Emily tosses the gun to the ground. It lands with a heavy thud.

“Messes are hard to clean up on island.” George unzips her dress the rest of the way. “But you know that.”

“Do I?” The material skims her hips, cool on its way to the ground. “Do I know it as well as you?” She touches the hollow in his throat. “How’d you do it?”

He unbuttons his shirt. “A boat is an islander’s friend.”

“Did you cut him up?” She reaches for his belt.

“I think you’re too interested.” He shrugs out of the shirt. “If I said I did? Would that turn you on?”

Her chest rises and falls, pulls in the damp air. She unbuckles his belt and tugs it free, hands riding up on his hips.

She goes down on one knee.

His hand drops to the crown of her head, plays with her mussed-up hair as she runs her hands over his buttocks. She rumples the khaki at his crotch, gropes behind his balls. She follows his inseams with the backs of her hands and he brings her cheek against his hip. Her breath goes irregular. He curls his hand around the nape of her neck, rubbing. Her face turns into his crotch.

“Did you weigh him down?”

“Yeah.” He unbuttons, unzips. “I did.”

Emily pulls his pants down to his knees. His cock rises up, hard and red.

She rests her forehead on the lowest slope of his belly, hands sliding up, fingertips first brushing, then reading the curve of a scar. His free hand massages the tingling roots of her hair. The texture of knitted skin opens up inside her and softens her inner thighs, murmuring a song of dreaming pain. The tension inside him shifts. She brushes her lips against it. She licks. The knot of flesh, unyielding, presses into her tongue. The fluttering of his breath struggles beneath hard muscle. The fingers in her hair get tight.

She whispers: “You don’t like it?”

His voice scrapes the bottom of his breath. “I like it.”

She traces the scar with her tongue and listens to his breath change. She purses her lips and blows on the wetness, watches the hairs on his belly stiffen.

He pushes her head down. He holds his cock against her face and Emily parts her lips, slides it into her mouth. She tastes long dark hours of sweat born in the stew of male chemistry, a trace of fabric softener. The velvet skin swells, taut veins pumping heat onto her tongue. He cradles the back of her head, pushes until she starts to gag. Spit builds at the corners of her mouth.

He reaches down, wipes them with the edges of this thumbs. He brushes her bangs off her forehead. He takes her cheeks in his hands.

“It goes in much easier,” he murmurs. “If you relax.”

The muscles in her throat jump and flutter. Her breath eases through her nose. She swallows.

“That’s it.” Low, rough, bringing her nerve endings up. He combs loose fingers through her hair. “That’s right.”

Each change in his breath brushes up against the inside of her skin. He cups the back of her head. The thickness of him slides in and out of her mouth and she sucks, her tongue loose, her lips tight. Salt flows out of him. She rests a hand on his belly. The muscles in his thighs shake. He covers her hand with his own, fingers curling tight.

Emily pulls her head off him.

He gets on his knees. He spreads his shirt on the damp ground, spreads the skirt of her dress. The ground prints its topography through the fabric. He pushes her down onto her back.

He part her thighs and covers her with his body, heating her up, kissing the line of her jaw down onto her neck. She puts her arms around him, arches up. He slides into her. She braces her bare heels on the dew-slippery ground. He rocks hard, tremors through her bones. He props himself up on his forearms.

“Say my name,” he pants.

The creeping fog does weird things to their breath. “George.”

He puts his face in her hair. “All of it.”

Her voice thins out, climbing a broken register. “Foyet.”

He pounds into her, breaks her breath into short puffs. She clasps his sweaty nape.

An image floating into her mind: flashlights slicing the darkness, her team running down into the clearing and she sees Penelope in something pink and sparkly and Penelope says _the lab tested the soil but they lost the samples_ and Morgan says _I told you something was wrong dammit why didn’t you push it_ and JJ says _look all the puzzle pieces are just waiting for the right hands _and there’s only Hotch in this fantasy, only Aaron, the rest of the team is window dressing---even Spencer’s equal parts horrified, fascinated, bewildered expression---and Hotch squats down beside her and lays the backs of his fingers on her sweat-beaded cheek. His fingers are cool. _I understand_, he says. _I understand why you need this. I understand why you need him_.

The dirt beneath her smells like metal, hard and hot as blood.

“I want it in the ass,” she gasps. “Can you fuck me in the ass?”

He moves off her and she turns onto her knees, and he caresses her buttocks, spreads her cheeks and with a luscious hum he pushes his mouth into the split of her and licks, working her twitching hole with the muscle of his tongue. Emily squirms down deep into herself, a wash of tingling rising up over her head. He scoops her steady pumping flood of wetness up and around her hole, rubbing it in with his fingers.

The wind smells like deep water salt. Steam rises out of her cunt. George pushes his fingers in there, twisting them, pumping her as he tongue-drills her ass. The thick stride of his knuckles pushes the fantasy out of her, tears it down. He straightens up on his knees, works the head of his cock between her cheeks. He bears down, pushes into her resistance.

She groans, the sound tricked by the fog, echoing low inside her breath. Her hands curl into fists.

He pops in and cries out.

Sweet anguish flares in her clit, shivers. In her darkness there is only him. He fills her from coast to coast, sweeping up the landscape of her body, chasing flames that burn everything in their path. Electricity crackles between her vertebrae.

He thrusts like a landslide. Her jaw loosens on the forward motion, scoops up air. Her knees slide through the dirt. She moans his name.

George leans over her, takes her throat into his palm. He pulls her head back. “Emily,” he breathes.

Her seams strain. He holds her like that, fucks her until the trembling in her voice cracks, her scream coming to life. It rushes up. She gathers inward, like the sea.

He comes with a tight jerking of the hips and a long full-throated moan that makes her want to come again. She reaches down and rubs herself, fingers furious, wet and slicking. He hauls her into him. Her orgasm rams through doors; the tension splinters one layer at a time, hurtling her through deep blood-scented darkness. She shivers in her cocoon of sweat. The strength pours out of her, a rushing tide.

_Now he’ll do it. _She tightens up, slumps. _Now he’ll kill me_.

He turns her over, gathers her up. He carries her back to the car.


	13. Bullets

There is a lot of dirt on her knees. Dirt and pine needles, tiny stones, strange lines and pockmarks ironed into her skin. She leans over, wipes the tops of her shins. Her pelvis shifts, feels too big for her body. She looks up, watches him climb the driveway, bare from the waist up and ghostly white in the restless dark. Her dress hangs over one arm like an empty shadow and he cradles her shoes to his ribs. He ducks out from beneath crosshatched tree branches and in his other hand is her gun, weighing down the natural swing of his arm.

_How far could I get on a dark highway while barefoot naked?_

Emily glances up at the rearview mirror. She imagines herself on the blacktop, running in the breakdown lane and wincing at the bite of pebbles. The steady wind. A car comes, headlights blinding her like a deer. She throws a hand up to block the assault of the light.

The car slows. The car doesn’t slow. Its driver thinks she is an apparition or a streaking drunk. Maybe the horn blows. The driver is a woman and a prickling of concern shifts her foot onto the brake. All along are barren dunes threatening to cross the road. Long empty places full of shuttered houses. Miles and miles of serpentine blackness, night breathing in the sound of crickets and the restless sea. Cold and bare, her pale skin flashing.

The driver’s side door unlocks, sending her train of thought off the rails. The wind blows inside the car, bounces off the glass, pushes her hair into her face. She moves it aside. George tosses her shoes onto the floormat. He reaches out, puts the dress on her lap. He digs around in his front pocket. She starts to unwind the skirt and he tosses the clip on top of its slippery pile. He climbs in and the car settles. He hands over the gun butt-first, leaning back in the seat and watching as she tucks it into her purse.

“I left the bullet.” He starts the engine. “Let em wonder.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

He rests his hands on the wheel. The red glow of the dash tints his skin, deepening the hollows in his cheeks. He looks at her. “Do you want me to?”

Nervous warmth awakens in her belly. It stretches out and turns over, bumps up against things she doesn’t want to think about. Her cheeks light with fitful heat. She looks toward the house. The windows are low, set in silvered listing walls and wrapped in flaking casements. Full of starlit darkness, individual square panes stare back like eyes.

“Why would you ask me that?”

George starts the car. He twists, bracing his arm behind the headrest, and looks over his shoulder. He nudges the wheel, easing the car up the driveway. “Why wouldn’t I?”

She wants a kiss like it would erase everything, repurpose the passing seconds and smooth down the hackles in her mind. The flavor of this craving crawls out of her tongue. She watches his hand, fingers on the molded leather of the steering wheel, veins under the skin like rivers. Knuckles like smooth and sleeping stones.

He is another country, full of strange customs she doesn’t understand.

She looks at the tendons in his turned neck and it comes like a wind, blowing in off her dark waters, a sigh knifing through her flesh and curling up to sleep in her throat. She swallows. Half-thought words floating up, fashioned out of silk:

_I am the opposite of Sleeping Beauty. I’m so awake._

Emily shakes it off, focuses on the pine needles on her dress. In places they spear the delicate fabric, rend the fine weave. She eases them out, a paramedic tweezing glass out of young skin. She drops the needles onto the floor. She plucks pitch-sticky twigs off the hem. She shakes it out the fabric as best she can, feeling it drift down cool and delicate across her thighs. She flips the dress up over her head. She wriggles her arms into the bodice. She leans forward and bends, reaching behind her waist for the zipper.

“I guess I don’t know.”

The car backs into the deserted lane. He steps on the brake, leans sideways, and reaches down between her spine and the seat. He takes the little metal tab out of her blind fingertips, tugs it up between her shoulder blades. Her back twists away from the intrusive pleasure of his skin.

“Thank you.”

For a brief second, his hand warms the silk. “You’re welcome.”

_Am I?_ Emily watches the rolling movement of the center line. _Am I welcome?_

She pushes a button. The window slides down. In rushes the air, washing over her face, smelling of fog and grass and rugged flowers. It ruffles her skirt up past her stained knees. It breaks up their body heat, pulling pieces of it out into the night.

“Is that a no?”

New memories hum inside his voice. She feels them, warm and living things longing to crawl. She crosses her legs. “Yes, it’s a no.”

_Pomegranate seeds_. The thought flies out of nowhere. _Food of the dead_.

“I’m not going to kill you.”

She looks at him. “Why?”

The lights of town flare up over the backs of houses and fall in through the windshield, deepening the dimple in his cheek. He’s smiling. “You’re more fun alive.”

Emily turns her back on the window. “And what happens when I stop being fun?”

He chuckles. “It’ll never happen.”

She feels warm, then cold, then warm. She fidgets. She turns her face into the wind.

Wharf houses pass by, salt-weathered shingles gleaming in the damp lamplight. Peaked roofs loom sharp and black against a pastel sky. Though they wear purple petunias in hanging baskets and bright-colored window boxes full of new marigolds, in every corner, every window, every eave they are dreaming of winter. She imagines them boarded up against a low roiling pewter sky, fringed with dripping ice.

_Crowded streetlights and the shapes of people walking inside the fallen pyramids of light, storefronts like cut-rate televisions offering freeze-frames of a culture that never existed._

The car slows. He pulls up next to a black streetlamp styled to look like an old-fashioned gaslight. Emily sees three of them, lined up inside their trick of diminishing perspective, a fourth and fifth melting into vague shapes of light. Music bangs around inside the mist, turned tinny with distance. A cluster of young drunk people ranges over the wet brick sidewalk, smoking cigarettes and laughing too loud. Hanging in the darkened plate glass window behind them are batik-printed shift dresses and bangles and leather purses imported from India. She smells exhaust.

The engine idles up through the seats. “You want me to leave you here?”

“No.”

He looks at her. “You want me to take you all the way?”

She gives him her profile. “I don’t have any secrets.”

He pulls back out into the road. The air smells like wet trees. Gold-lit windows float in shades of darkness.

“All the way to the door?”

The last of the lampposts retreats. Emily leans over. She wipes the remainder of her red lipstick across his bare shoulder. He glances at the top of her head. She touches the inside of his thigh. Pink streaks smear onto her cheek, desire cracking open inside her breath.

He pulls the car onto the soft shoulder and hooks one hand around the back of her neck, hauls her face up to his. She whimpers. Parts of her fall away and land in his mouth, floating on the erratic bursts of his breath. He smothers her in his salty mouth, making a fist of her hair.

In her mind she is turned over, her head sinking into his lap, looking at the ceiling of the car and the shape of his jaw. In her mind she can only feel the forward momentum of wheels, see the flash of passing headlights like heat lightning on a steamed windshield.

Her life is a raft. She is floating, floating.

In her flesh the kiss is breaking, pulling apart into strings of panting saliva. She puts his fingers on a nipple. It stands up hard beneath the silk. The way he touches it makes her think of bullets.


	14. I Want To Kill Your Aaron

A small black spider sits in the corner above the showerhead.

Hissing water, hot and steady. Steam curls up into her eyes, condenses on her cheeks.

Emily looks up at the strands of web, gilded with fine droplets of water: _why would anything make its home in here?_

Her gun is in the safe. She imagines it lying on its side in the dark, breathing its blood scent.

George’s hands move soapsuds across her back. She pulls in a moist breath. His fingers follow the minute curves in her bones. Her head hangs, water dripping off the ends of her hair. She braces her hands against the tiles, leans into them. He reaches around to soap up her belly, the rise and fall of her breath cradled in his fingers.

The atmosphere in her veins feels thin. Lofty currents infiltrate her joints, make them dizzy.

His chin grazes her shoulder. His breath gets lost in the steam. He lathers up her hips and the blood in her loins pulses tight and hard. She brings the soap up around her breasts, water hitting the side of her face. His fingers slide through hers. He buries his lips in the hot stream coursing down the back of her neck and she closes her eyes, the kiss flowing over the stones of her spine, through the cleft of her buttocks. Water runs off her nose, sluices between her breasts. Spent bubble churn around her toes.

She imagines a little insect drawing loops in the steam, swerving too close to the corner and catching on the bejeweled web: the struggle, the spider skittering closer, all those tiny drops of water falling.

Emily leans back. She learns the topography of his body with blind skin, his body hard and punctuated by junctures of bone, the joints strung with tense yet sensitive muscle.

He touches her collarbones. The weight of her hair pulls her head back. His hand slides up beneath her chin, skates across the easy vulnerability of her arched throat. He turns her face. The dark hairs on his forearms follow the will of the water. He reaches up, directs the spray onto the front of her body. The water’s pressure beats a flush into her skin.

“Tell me how you were as a teenager,” he murmurs into the moist cup of her ear.

“Raw,” she breathes. “Vulnerable.” Her voice drops into a whisper. “Half-crazy.”

“And now?”

He tips her chin back, kisses her water-beaded mouth. She licks runnels of water off his upper lip. His tongue twines with hers.

“Hungry.”

Emily pushes his hand down between her legs. The water feels hard against the swelling silk of her lubrication. Her hips move, her throat full of faint and rhythmic whimpering. He moves his hand, fingers slipping up into her from behind. The intense heat of her cunt enfolds his knuckles. She moans and imagines it like a wound, a hungry incision begging. She spreads her legs and water drums into the bottom of the tub, like a pool, like rain.

“Push it in all the way,” she murmurs. “Yeah. Yeah.”

Emily smells herself, blooming like a marigold in the salt, musky and strong through a curtain of hot water and soap. He pushes up, slides out, pushes up slow, easing them in, hard. She leans her forehead into the tiles. Her spine ripples. Her ass rocks into the curve of his wrist.

“I wanted it,” she sighs. “I wanted the cut.”

“I know.”

“Wanted it…like a new cunt…wanted my fingers between her ribs,” she pants. “My tongue in her, in her cut. I-I wanted to lick her heart and put my fingers in the ventricles.”

His voice gets raspy. “I know.”

“Oh, George.”

She loosens, gets hotter. He nestles his fingers in her cunt, strokes her asshole with his thumb. Her breath shallows and there’s a quiver, a faint tightening around his knuckles like she wants to hold it in. She shivers a little. He strokes the shaft, chases its tiny pulse. Her body tenses. He takes his fingers out.

Emily shuts off the shower and steps out of the tub on uncertain legs. The mirror is shrouded in fog.

George pulls the curtain aside, steps onto the mat. He opens the door. Cold air spills in, dissipates loose drifts of billowing steam.

Her teeth chatter. She yanks a towel down off the shelf, wraps it tight around her shoulders. He slips a hand under her wet hair, kisses her quivering lips. She presses into the heat of his skin. He takes her hair in both hands, squeezes it. Her towel soaks up water, gets heavy, slides to the floor. She uses another one to dry her skin. He licks drops of water off his fingertips.

She shakes all over with goosebumps.

He moves into the blue dark of the bedroom, pulls all of the windows down; the air outside is raw and cold. He leaves the sashes cracked open just enough to hear the constant roar of the waves.

Emily tosses her towel into the corner of the drenched bathroom. She walks into the bedroom, tugs the blankets apart with shivering hands. The harsh overhead light casts her shadow across the bed. She burrows down between cool sheets.

He crawls into the bed with her, still damp in places, hauling the heavy blankets up around her shoulders. The weight is comforting.

She touches his lips with her pruned fingers. He licks their wrinkled skin.

“Say something to me,” she murmurs.

He pulls her close to his body, breathes into her cheekbone: “I want to kill your Aaron.”

Emily’s eyes open. “Why?”

He pulls the blankets up around her head. “So you’ll remember him.”

She turns, moves up onto her elbow. “Are you going to do it?”

“I don’t think so.” He rolls onto his back.

Emily climbs over him. “Why not?”

He lifts her damp hair out of her face. “So he’ll remember me.”

He kisses underneath her jaw and each touch of his mouth unlaces her a little more. She lets out a long sigh, turns her head. His hands slide up her back.

Warmth built by lazy friction suffuses the blankets, works its way toward her cold toes. He sucks the skin behind her ear and she fills with a tenderness that loosens the junctures of nerve and bone.

He rolls her onto her back, dips his head. The skin around his mouth is just beginning to roughen, sharp hairs peeking through. She works slow fingers through his cool damp hair down to its warm roots, massages the thick tendons running up from his neck.

He pushes the covers aside. Her nipple reacts to the cold. He grazes it with his lips, just breathing. She jumps. He closes his mouth around it, licks from inside wet heat. Her heart beats faster. Her breath quickens.

Emily’s hands slide over his back, fingers spreading. “He’s not my Aaron,” she whispers.

George bites. His teeth dig in and loose heat floods her belly; her breath rises into her throat on tides of starlight and he looks up at her, eyes gleaming.

She falls through the doors behind them, buried in the dark, down a long restless corridor of bottomless lust. Beyond that are the spaces between the stars, deep silent rooms where there is no light. Inside his eyes are crushing currents. The petals of her mind brush up against mysterious hunger, dead places, blind formless will. A sharpened desolation dreams beneath a heart of darkness.

His teeth are on her nipple, hard enough to just break the skin. The outermost layers giving way to minuscule vessels. The boundaries of her skin vibrate with pain. Like a seal they break into scarlet upon his lips.

She strokes his hair, the silver of it mixing with dark silk and whispering stark memories against the undersides of her fingers. His eyes close and the throbs begin, hot and sharp, like tiny thorns twined up inside her skin. Air quakes inside her lungs.

Emily moves a hand over his cheek. “Do the other one.”

He licks the other nipple. Her pain dulls, lulled to sleep by soft pleasure. He catches it in his teeth, jaw pressing slow, breath puffing hot and quick through his nose. She sighs back into the pillow.

She goes into herself this time, falls through the trapdoors in her psyche and into a room made of escalating pain. Its walls are woven of nerve-song and dark, no light to make new shadows out of her desire, just the wanting itself, a strange animal curved back and devouring itself. It plucks sensation out of the pain, out of the empty places, hauls things up out of her core on a flood of salt-scented sky. Dead stars drift up around her chin. His teeth break through into a world of blood.

She simmers, both aroused and tranquil. George climbs over her and his kiss tastes like a pistol barrel sliding against the roof of her mouth.

_This is my rifle, this is my gun_.

She slides a hand between them, grips the thickness of his hard cock. She inhales the metallic taste of his lips, erases it with her tongue. He pulses against the tight circle of her fingers.

“I want you in me,” she whispers.

_This one’s for shooting, this one’s for fun_.

She makes a cradle of her thighs. He moves into her and she is waiting. He touches her on all sides and the climate in her spine wakes up from a dream of storms. Brimstone brews in her bones. She feels him on her skin like a pouring rain that wants to turn monsoon. He lifts himself up onto his forearms, looks down into her face. Light from the bathroom breaks on his face, slides across his mouth, drips into the space between his collarbones. She breathes him, moves into the heat of his body, the dampness on his skin. He runs his fingers along the inside of her arm. He follows blue veins like deep rivers in her wrist. She lifts up her neck. He moves forward, up and over, cresting her, pulling back enough to do it hard this time. Like an impact.

Her palms move light across his back, so light his posture can barely stand it.

He ruts hard, fast, plunging in deep like he wants it to be over. He puts his face in her hair. The silence fills with the sound of his exertion. Her pelvis is a tectonic plate. The motion of him pushes her body up into a mountain range. She turns slippery, mewling like a wild thing. His jaw clenches, once twice, teeth gleaming into the curve of her neck.

When he comes, it’s a shipwreck. His momentum cracks up on the shoals of her body and shudders, scrunches up, sounds young. She scoops with her hips and holds on to his shoulders, grinds into him until the first of her slow deep spasms begins and echoes in her breath. Each contraction is a wave, rolling over her, dragging her under, pulling her down to the bottom of a red darkness. For a handful of ecstatic seconds she is inside her heart, squeezed in its throbbing muscle. Her ears drown in a rush of blood.

She gasps and rises up through the sharp edge of her body’s pleasure, bobbing on the last spasms. The cold enters her sweat. She moans.

He pushes himself off her and lands on his back, one forearm draped over his eyes. His throat labors.

Emily looks at the ceiling. She thinks of the spider in the bathroom, watches neurons fire off, one by one, into the dark.

_I need to get out of here._


	15. I Can Go A Long Time Without Sleep

The room is warm despite the open windows, darkness rumpled up and smelling of skin.

Emily sits in one of the armchairs. She’s wrapped up in a coverlet, holding onto a glass of wine.

“So…why the Reaper?” Wind stirs in her hair. She takes a sip. “It’s not exactly original.”

“It has semiotic power.” He smirks. “The personification of death and its association with fate is a universal symbol embedded in the human cultural experience.”

A corner of her mouth quirks into a smile. “So in this case, originality is bad?”

“It’s not bad.”

George reaches out, gestures with his fingers. Emily gets up, passes him the glass.

“It’s just not as powerful. Think about stories.” He takes a drink. “Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella. Little American girls…” His eyebrows lift. “Actually, all the little girls in first-world countries with European colonial roots, they grow up with some variation of this story: the prince, he rides in on his white steed and rescues the peasant maiden from her dreary and awful life, and they get married, and it’s happily ever after. Now,” he goes on, sitting up and leaning over, handing back the glass, “these stories were told to little girls as a way for their underclass mothers to pretty up how the princes were always swooping down and raping the maidens whenever they felt like it.” He leans into the pillows, crosses his ankles. “So what you’ve got going on in the Prince Charming story is a double meaning, or the meaning beneath the meaning. It makes a big stain on the collective psyche. A bruise. You poke it and when the person goes ‘ouch’ all the subtleties get bypassed.”

Emily swallows. “That’s horrible.”

He shrugs. “So’s life.”

She tosses her head. “Whatever happened to branding yourself?”

“Too much work.” He tucks his hands beneath his head. “Besides, riffing on a trope is much more primitive. People don’t think. They just react.”

She leans back, holds the glass in front of her mouth. A slight smile twitches her lips. “Are you waiting for me to tell you how smart you are?”

He grins. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“Uh huh.” She sips.

“You gonna finish that?”

Emily unfolds herself from the chair and walks to the edge of the bed, bare feet maneuvering the bits of clothing strewn across the floor.

She reaches out, balances the glass on his navel. He takes hold of the stem and lifts the glass to his mouth.

He downs the last of the wine. “What are you waiting for?”

She hooks a chunk of hair behind one ear. “For you to fall asleep.”

“I can go a long time without sleep.”

She sits on the foot of the bed. “Me too.”

He reaches out, runs his hand over her ankle.

“So it’s just a name, then.” Emily pulls her foot back, tucks it beneath herself. “Not an identity.”

“Mmmm hmmm.” He tilts his head back, looks at her down the length of his nose. “You ever ask yourself why you wanted to be a profiler?”

“Yeah.”

He pulls a pillow down behind his head. “What’s your answer?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Here’s a newsflash for you.” She chuckles. “You don’t have to like my answer in order for it to be an answer.”

“That is not a fuckin answer.”

“Then why don’t you tell me since you’re so smart and all. Since you know me better than I know myself.” She tilts her head. “Right, George?”

“I know you’re a hybristophile with necrophiliac tendencies. I know you’re smart enough to mess with all the tests you have to take in order to get into the FBI academy. I know that for everything I know about you there are three things I don’t.” He lowers his voice. “You ever kill anyone, Emily?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, now.” He starts to smile. “You can tell me.”

“I am not a hybristophile.”

He spreads his arms. His eyebrows go up. “Oh, really.”

“Yes. Really.”

“So you ever want to kill anyone?”

“Everyone wants to.”

“But not like you.” He sits up, traces the curve in her cheekbone. “Am I right?”

She pulls her head back, turns away.

“You know, I liked ‘oh George’ much better.”

“I’ve never killed anyone.” Emily pulls the coverlet around her breasts. “I recognize the difference between an urge and an imperative. I recognize the difference between fantasy and reality.” She looks at him. “I can control myself.”

“You can play with the matches without getting burned. That’s why you’re a profiler.”

“You ever ask yourself why you like killing people?”

“No. Killing is a fundamental pleasure. Like you said, everyone wants to. And everyone does. But not everyone does it like me.” He chuckles. “Killing isn’t even the point. That’s something you profiler types never seem to get. Unless, of course…you do.” He pauses. “Come here.”

“I don’t think so.”

He grabs the coverlet. She leans backward but he pulls her across the bed, into him. She stiffens and he does too until they’re frozen in place, passing the same breath back and forth.

The kiss comes out of heat and proximity, slow. Their noses touch.

The wine tastes different on his tongue. She pushes away from the familiarity of it.

“I’m going home,” she pants. “The magical mystery tour is over.”


	16. Caught

_The land is behind me; the land is ahead of me. I’m caught._

The biting wind whips her hair. Emily’s hands are on the on the rail. She watches the ferry’s prow split deep ocean into foam. A skim of fog curls in bright tendrils up into the pale sky. The engines thrum inside her knees and she imagines the land beneath them falling away, buried in water, drowned and shearing into the dark. Moisture in the air numbs her fingers. Her eyes fix on the horizon, probe for the precise division between sky and sea.

_I’ll rent a car in Hyannis. I’ll drive the rest of the way home._

Morning smelled like roses and wet rocks. Emily stood on the boat landing, buried in mist and the first tentative creamy light of dawn. The water swished around the pilings as she dialed Aaron’s voicemail:

\---Hi, I’m leaving early. This is Emily. I’ll hit Hyannis around nine.

She held the phone close to her cheek, fingers tight on its plastic casing. She listened to her voice tremble in ways that only she could hear.

\---I’m renting a car. I’m driving home.                                    

She closed her eyes, cleared the dregs from her throat. She held onto the phone and tried to imagine his face and could not summon individual features out of the Aaron-haze filling her mind.

\---I’ll see you in a couple of days.

She hung up, walked into the terminal, and bought a cup of coffee. The rich scent of caffeine and hot cardboard entered her body and set off a chain reaction of calm. She sat with her bags on a plastic bench, fingers wrapped tight around the cup’s warmth, and watched through the smeared glass as the whitewashed sun diffused through the fog. She felt tired all through her body. Her bones held up her lack of sleep, moved inside it, took on a weight of coffee and disowned time.

She wraps herself in a heavy sweater. The air cuts through the woolen weave and polishes her cheeks into a red flush. She holds in her shivering and looks at the water, smooth and calm in deference to the early hour. Her teeth chatter.

_When the fog is gone I’ll go inside. I’ll stay out here and watch it fall apart first._

It tatters like a veil, pulling apart in currents of heat. This far out and there are no seagulls breaking the silence. Backlit by sun, the dissolution looks almost spiritual, radiant life force entering an invisible world and leaving the salty tang of spilled blue blood behind. The early morning sun knocks shards of light into her eyes.

Her cell phone rings. She pulls it out of her jeans pocket and looks at the screen. She doesn’t know the number. She ignores it.

Emily leaves the deck for the warm interior. She buys a bagel at the snack bar and sits beside a broad window, smearing cream cheese with a plastic knife.

The phone rings again. She glances at it.

“Hello?”

“Is everything all right?”

She closes her eyes for a brief moment. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.”

“You still have three days of your vacation.”

“I know.” She squints into the brightness and takes a bite. “It’ll take me one of those to get off the Cape.”

There is a pause. In it she can hear water and engines and overlapping voices and her breath sliding over muted traffic noise. She wipes cream cheese off her bottom lip. “Are you on your way in?”

“Yeah. The traffic isn’t too bad.”

“I can hear it.” Saying the words makes her grin. “What you’re hearing from this end, it’s the ferry’s engines. Those things are huge and very loud.”

“Do you…” Hotch takes a quick breath, lets it out. “Do you want me to meet up with you somewhere? I mean, I can take the time. Morgan can handle things. If he can’t there’s always Dave.”

She stops chewing. She folds up a napkin and wipes her mouth with it, swallowing.

“Emily?” He pauses. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no. No.” She makes gestures with the napkin that he can’t see. “It’s not necessary, you coming up here. I’m okay. They need you down there.” She laughs. “I can drive by myself.”

“I know,” he says.

She can almost hear the song on the radio. She presses the phone tight to her ear, listening through the static.

“Do you want me to?”

“That would be nice.” She looks down and smiles a little. “Thank you.”

“It’s a long drive.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“Where do you want to meet?”

“Um—I’ll be in Hyannis by nine.” She looks up and out the window, hooks hair behind her ears. “It shouldn’t take much more than an hour to get a car and get on the road. I could be in East Wareham by ten or eleven o’clock tonight, provided the traffic doesn’t suck.”

“If you can wait in Hyannis, I can be there tonight.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He lets out a sharp sigh. “Look. If you think this is a bad idea, say so.”

“Oh, no. No.” She plugs her ear. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I’m pretty tired.” Her voice softens. “You’re right, I probably shouldn’t be driving alone. I should at least get a nap in first.”

“Can you get a room?”

“Yeah, I think so. I mean it’s barely the beginning of the season, so yeah.” She nods. “Yes.”

“All right. Let me know where you’re staying.”

“I will.”

“I guess I’ll see you later.”

“All right.”

Emily hangs up.

_The land is behind me; the land is ahead of me. I’m caught._

She eats her bagel and ignores her burning tears until they abate. When she’s finished her food she goes into the tiny lurching bathroom and washes her face with ice-cold chlorinated water.

She looks at herself in the stained mirror. Its edges warp where it has been bolted to the wall. Under harsh fluorescent light, she reads the exhaustion written into her face.

Her lips are reddened, chapped at the corners. She looks loosened up, haunted.

_I am haunted. That’s a good word for it. I’m haunted by myself. I carved out my past, made an alcove, and put George Foyet in there. What…what were you thinking?_

The question falls through her, burning up on descent. Ashes rain into her bloodstream.

_Is this any better? Do the shadows make more sense?_

New memories and old ones all soldered together into a stain glass wall. They flicker like there are candles inside them. She’s alone in the nave of her mind, unsure of what to do.

_How do I worship this new god? What words to speak, what oils to anoint with, what incense to burn. It wants everything, and I have nothing left to give._

Emily rinses off her hands, dries her face with a scratchy brown paper towel.

She leaves the bathroom, looks through the wind-buffeted windows at the horizon. The sky is clear and bright. Its gentle pitch and roll and clenches her throat with weak nausea.

She returns to her seat, where she takes off her sweater and balls it up into a pillow. She stretches out, turns onto her side. She closes her eyes but the motion of the water settles into her body. She sloshes back and forth inside her skin.

_I’ll try to sleep, then. I’ll try._

A small voice burrowed inside her own climbs up to its hole. It whispers: _Can you? Can you do it not knowing if you’re alone?_

Her own voice, the conscious tones of her mind, will have none of it: _Of course you left island alone. You watched your fellow passengers board. You watched them closely. There are no excuses now. You know the rhythms and postures of his body. Thanks to the last twenty-four hours, you know them better than anyone. So shut up, voice. Crawl back down into your lizard cave._

It goes, of course, hightailing it back down into the darkness, but not without leaving behind its most potent gift: unease.

_Subtract an e, scramble the letters, and _unease_ becomes _nausea_. _

Emily curls up her knees.

_The land is behind you. Yes, the land is ahead of you, and you’re caught. Between those two things there is no hope of sleep_.

She puts her hands together like a prayer, tucks them beneath one cheek.


	17. The Best Sex Always Happens In Hotel Rooms

Her pocket buzzes. She wrestles off the blankets and reaches into her pocket. She squints at the display.

She mumbles: “Hello?”

“I’m at the door. Are you going to let me in?”

“Sorry.” Her bearings come back to her but they take their time. She sits up. “I was sleeping.”

_Hotel room, bearing the same white walls as a hundred hotel rooms before it. Like it’s a dominant gene passed down through the years_.

She rubs her eyes with one hand, walks to the door.

“I’ve got food,” says Aaron.

“I know.” Emily smiles, disengages the safety chain. “I smell it.” She hangs up, tucks the phone back into her pocket. “Come on in.” She pulls the door open. “Turn on some lights.” She sweeps her arms. “Make yourself at home!”

“I got veggie supreme,” he says. “I trust that’s all right?”

“It’s more than all right.” Emily walks to the big window and draws back the curtain, lets smoky light fall into the room. “It’s perfect.”

“Perfect.” He slides the pizza box onto a small table. “That’s a first. How about a bottle of Coke? Is that perfect too?”

“Tonight? Yes.” Emily straightens out the blankets and sits on top of them. “How was your flight?”

“Not bad.” Aaron sets up two plastic cups and fills them with Coke. “It’s a nice enough day for it. Here.” He hands her a cup and some napkins. “Do you want a plate?”

“Mmm…sure.”

He pulls a couple of slices out of the box and puts them on her plate, loosening up the long strings of cheese, looping them over the slices with his fingers. He hands over the plate and takes a seat at the table. He picks up a piece of pizza. He puts his elbows on the table and readies to take a bite.

He looks at her. “So how are you?”

“Less tired,” says Emily, between chews. “I got caught up enough.” She swallows. “I had a good nap. I was thinking, actually, that we could go ahead and leave tonight, if you wanted to.” She wipes her mouth with a napkin. “There’s still time to at least get off the Cape.”

Aaron swallows. “Are you in that much of a hurry?”

Emily pauses. She blushes, shakes her head. “No. No, I suppose not.” She pulls a caramelized bit of onion out of its bed of cheese. “I just thought…oh, I don’t know. Saving time? But I guess I don’t need to save time on a vacation.”

“How was your vacation, by the way?” He puts down the slice, wipes grease off his fingers. “Your time on Nantucket?”

“It was nice.”

“I’ve never been,” he says. “What is it like?”

“Well,” she says, smiling and taking a sip of Coke. “It’s like the rest of New England, only more expensive.”

“What did you do?”

“I ate seafood, enjoyed the view from my room, took walks on the beach…you know. The stuff you do at the coast.”

“No swimming?” He breaks off a piece of crust and eats it. “No getting a suntan?”

She shakes her head. “Too cold for that.”

“Time to yourself, then.” He smiles. “It sounds nice.”

“Yeah, it’s nice when you really need it.” Emily chuckles. “Otherwise it doesn’t take long to get overrated. How are things back at the homestead?”

He swallows a mouthful of pizza. “Steady on.”

She laughs.

“It’s been slow.” He wipes his mouth. “You aren’t missing much.”

“That’s good to know.”

She looks at him: plain gray t-shirt, jeans, strong jaw and the kind of eyes that offer shelter from the weather of the world. She watches him eat and waits for his presence to leak out of his skin, slow soak filling up the room and pressing against the waiting dusk—she waits for the space he is occupying to alight on her bones and warm her from the inside. It’s the small things: a glint of light on his watch, his habit of cleaning his chin with every third bite, the slow measured sips of Coke.

“Do you like it?”

“Like what?”

“The pizza.” He grins. “I picked it up at that place around the corner.” He gestures over his shoulder. “Scottie’s Famous Pizza.”

Emily pulls a mushroom off the crust. “It’s good.”

“Yeah, but is it famous?”

She giggles. “I don’t know about that, but it’s better than…I don’t know, deep fried crap.” She pops the mushroom into her mouth. “I think these are fresh. They don’t taste canned.”

“It’s quite a step-down from lobster.”

“It’s a welcome step-down, believe me.” She pauses. “If I don’t talk much about my vacations, it’s because there’s some part of me that feels bad. I know you guys can’t afford trips to Nantucket. Well, except for Dave.”

He looks at her. “I’m sorry, Emily.”

She wipes her fingers with a napkin. “Why?”

“I didn’t…I didn’t mean to draw attention…never mind.” He wipes his mouth, balls up the napkin, and tosses it into the pizza box. He sighs. “I’m just sorry. Leave it at that.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I know it has to be annoying sometimes to hear all about Dave’s weekend jaunts to Las Vegas or my week spent in Nantucket,” she says with a roll of her eyes, “which is the kind of vacation spot only old money can really love.”

Aaron smiles a little. “Really.”

“Yeah.” She carries her plate and wadded-up napkins to the trash. “It’s like…bad pop music, or weird local food. You have to grow up with it.”

“I see.”

Emily chuckles. “Let’s just say that when mom wanted downtime, she was ‘worth it.’ That means places like the Riviera, Aspen, the Hamptons…and Nantucket.” She pours herself some more Coke. “Do you want any more?”

“No, thanks.”

Emily closes the bottle and takes a drink. She sits down on the foot of the bed. “Thanks for the food.”

“No problem. I have to eat, too, you know. So it wasn’t much of a hardship.”

 “Oh, so it’s all about convenience.” She grins.

“No.” He chuckles. “Of course not.”

“So what do you feel like doing? I suppose we could hang out here and watch a movie, or we could go out and look for something to do.” She carries his plate to the trash. “We have hours to go before we sleep.”

“We could find a beach and stick our feet in the water.” His mouth quivers into a grin. “So is wading a big thing in the old money set? You all sit around your multi-piece place settings and swap stories about all the million dollar beaches you’ve dipped your feet into?”

Emily makes a face at him. She starts to laugh. “No.”

“No?”

“That’s some cold water,” she teases. “I don’t know if those Southern-bred feet of yours can handle the truth.”

“My feet are tougher than they look.”

“Well then. If you want to stick your feet in some Atlantic Ocean, I think we can arrange that.” She glances at the window. “We should go soon, before the sun is all the way down. It’s not far. We can walk, if you want. It’s that close.”

“I’ve been sitting all day and a walk sounds like heaven right about now.”

“Let me put some shoes on.”

They step out together into the cooling light of a lavender sky. Moist air blows in off the water, smelling of pine bark, hot pavement, and French fries.

“I know you’re tired of hearing me say it.” He looks at her. “But I have to ask. Is there something going on? Are you all right? You didn’t sound like you were doing so hot this morning.”

“I appreciate your concern. I really do, even though I keep brushing it off.” A seagull takes wing overhead, filling the sky with its rusted cries. “I’m okay. Yeah, so there’s been stuff going on behind the scenes. I haven’t been talking about it.” She touches his arm. “I know you all know, and I’m sure there are lots of wild theories bouncing around. But…it doesn’t matter.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out through pursed lips. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. I took care of it. So don’t worry about me anymore.”

“When something doesn’t matter, it doesn’t leave this kind of a mark. If you want to tell me that it doesn’t matter, then…well, there isn’t much I can do about it, is there? I don’t have to believe you.” He glances at her. “And I don’t.”

Emily watches the storefronts crawl by. “That’s fair.”

“I’ll renew my offer to listen. I mean it. If you want to talk about it, I’m here. It doesn’t expire when we get back home. I’ll renew it…well, pretty much forever.”

“Okay.”

“So. Do Nantucket summer people ever buy each other snow cones?”

Emily laughs. “When they do, they put it in a crystal bowl with a candied flower on top and call it granita.”

Aaron walks up to a blue kiosk that has been painted to look like an igloo. Plastic icicles hang from its awning. “Do you want one?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“What kind?”

“Piña colada?”

“Okay.”

Emily watches the young guy behind the counter pack shaved ice into paper cones with a spatula. He drizzles one with blue syrup, the other with yellow and clear. Aaron reaches for his wallet, pulls it out of his back pocket, and flips it open. He pays, takes hold of the snow cones. They look absurd in his hands.

“Here,” he says.

She takes it, keeping the napkin wrapped around its base. She takes a bite. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Is it good?”

“Yeah. You want a lick?”

They trade.

“Yummy.” His is raspberry-flavored, tart and sweet. “I should’ve gone with the blue.”

He sniffs hers. “It smells like suntan lotion.”

“But it tastes delicious.”

He takes a small bite. “Yes. It does.”

“Hey, we’re almost there. That’s the thing about the Cape. You’re never too far from a beach.”

Cottages run up to the dune grass, many of them with private boardwalks down to the sand. The beach is empty. Emily takes off her sandals, carries them looped over one finger. She licks the dripping remains of her snow cone off the inside of her wrist.

Aaron toes off his sneakers, carries them by the laces. He follows her down to the high tide line. She drops her sandals. She tips the last of the slush into her mouth and crumples up the empty paper cone, stuffing it into her jeans pocket. She bends over and rolls up the legs of her jeans.

“Hey.” She turns her head sideways, looking up at him. “Are you gonna roll em? Cause they’ll get wet if you don’t.”

“Look, Emily,” he says. “I’m bad at this.”

“Bad at what? I mean, this is wading.” She straightens up. “It’s not exactly rocket science.”

“No, I mean…” He gestures at the beach. “This. This thing. With you.”

She looks at him, noticing the tension in his body. “I don’t understand.” Wind blows her hair against the side of her face. “Is there something wrong?”

“I want to be…I’m trying to be…more than just your…your boss. God this is such a bad idea.” He rubs his face. “I’m trying to be more to you and you just keep closing the door on me and that’s okay, you know, I’ll stop trying if that’s what you want.”

“Aren’t we friends? Isn’t this…you coming up here, driving back with me, isn’t that what friends do?” She walks around until she’s in front of him. “I’ve always thought of you that way. Was I wrong to?”

“No, no, of course not.”

“Then what are we talking about?”

He drops onto one knee, folding the denim up past his ankle. “Forget it.”

“I am not going to forget it.”

He sighs. “You agree that we’re friends. Right?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how we couldn’t be after all we’ve been through together.”

He shifts onto the other knee and gets to work. “I want more.”

The sound of waves fills the silence.

“It’s not appropriate. It’s not a good idea. I know all that.” He stands and looks at her. “I can’t help it.”

“Is this what you’re doing here?” Her voice drops. “Is that the whole point? Am I…am I really dumb, or something, for not catching on sooner? Have you been trying all this time? I…I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say to this, Aaron.”

“Look, we can forget about this conversation. It’ll be like it never happened.” He looks into her eyes. “If that’s what you want.”

“How am I supposed to forget something like this?”

“Do you want me to go?” He lowers his voice. “Do you want to be alone for a little while?”

“No!” She starts for the ocean. “Come on. You wanted your feet in the water, now come down here and stuck your feet in this fucking goddamned water.”

“Emily…”

“No. No! You will not ‘Emily’ me. You do not get to ‘Emily’ me.” She stands in the rushing foam. “Now come down here. Come on.”

He looks at her with an expression that is both hesitant and raw. “This is not necessary.”

“It is.” She wipes her eyes. “It is necessary.” She waves her hand, reaching out. “Come here.”

He does, stepping with exaggerated care over the seaweed and down into the water-soft sand, wincing at the cold. He takes her hand. Water rushes up around his ankles. Emily puts her arms around him.

“Don’t.” His voice is almost lost inside the waves. “Not unless you mean it.”

“Shut up, Aaron.” She puts her cheek on his chest and closes her eyes, his warmth and the cold water pulling at her ankles. She smells dead seaweed, a ghost of fabric softener. “Just…shut up.”

 “I’d like to kiss you.”

She nods, lifts her chin. She closes her eyes, imagines the ribbons of foamy water pulling around her ankles. That tugging. His hands feel strange on her face, like they don’t curve in the right places and won’t fit the shapes in her cheekbones.

His palms warm her skin. They keep her in place, steady her stance as his breath glides in for a landing.

Emily’s mouth opens and her breath quickens and there it is; the hairs on her body stand up, all of them, a sensation like the top layers of her skin peeling off and launching into space, shooting up through all those layers of blue air into something beyond, something strange, something outside the boundaries of her existence. She holds her breath and thinks _oh my God I don’t feel anything at all_ before a shudder starts deep in the muscles of her thighs. It turns them inward, their violence rising hot and calamitous up through her belly. He catches the back of her neck, holds her face close.

“It’s time to go,” she whispers, running the heels of her hands across his stubbly jaws.

The wind whistles down out of the sky, slapping away the day’s remaining heat. He pushes hair out of her face. His fingertips are cold.

The moment is a blade, cold and slipping through the ties between her body and her breath.

He holds her as close as possible and they cling to each other in the failing light.

The waves crash and crash, folding over into one another, a grating constant hollow noise. He breathes, ragged, into her ear. Her toes curl into the sand, go numb.

“You’re cold,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you inside.”

At the hotel room they get into bed. They leave their clothes on, layering limbs and breath and body heat until everything slows down. Darkness settles over the room’s landscape. She snuggles down into it, feels the way his desire for sleep creeps through his body. He moves her hair to one side, hand performing an old ingrained dance dressed in half-forgotten tenderness. He kisses high up on her neck, near the place where her hair takes over. The soft, tentative feeling of his mouth climbs up her vertebrae and shivers into her throat.

“What about Haley?”

“She’s gone, Emily. She left me. Remember?”

“Yes, but…don’t you still love her?”

“I can’t love you too?”

She turns over. “I‘m not a substitute. I won’t be one.”

“Of course not.”

They kiss and it’s different in the dark, hands reaching for outcroppings of face, pulling up into an undressed meeting of mouths. It’s gradual, building in layers of slippery skin and moist breath.

She climbs into the tongue-crossed heat of it, sinking, waiting for the strange rush, that feeling like being in orbit and longing for gravity.

They come apart.

“I don’t want to push you,” he pants in a fading whisper, “don’t let me push you.”

She pulls up his shirt, brushes his ribs with the tips of her fingers. It shudders through his lungs. She strips the shirt off him, runs her fingers down the ridges of his spine. He shivers, body softening into the sensation, and his mouth comes down on her face, her earlobe, her neck. Her skin awakens to the wet silk of his tongue. Her mouth opens, draws in air. His kisses drift like tingling feathers into the bowl of her pelvis. She arches against their hot weight. He moves between her thighs.

“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he whispers into her throat. “There are too many hotel rooms in our lives.”

His fingers slide between hers and grasp tight, pressing her hands into the pillow.

“This means so much more when it happens at home.”

He massages her breast, thumb brushing the raw ache in her nipple. Her breath speeds up, her body pulling away from an echo of teeth. Her cunt clutches at the memory. She whimpers. Her hand slides over the back of his, molds it tight to her breast.

“The best sex always happens in hotel rooms,” she sighs.

She unzips his jeans. He wriggles out of them.

He is pulling her shirt over her head when his phone rings. He can’t remember where it is, and he feels all over the nightstand and picks hers up before the shape of it tells him it’s the wrong one. Emily reaches down over the edge of the bed and snatches up his jeans, shakes them. The phone falls out, all lit up and strident.

She passes it to him, watches him unlock the screen. He stretches out on his back, holds it to his ear with the rumpled covers tossed up past his navel and the sharp bones in his face glazed with digital light. She leans on one elbow, watches his expression change: first the softness rolling back, swirling down, and then fines lines of tension surfacing around his mouth. His face closes up, gaze reaching past the ceiling.

_This is what drove Haley away. This right here, how one phone call can erase all emotion from his face. This invisible mask of armor. She doesn’t understand_.

Emily puts a hand on his chest, the vibration of his voice warm inside her fingertips. He darkens the phone and lets it fall onto the bed and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“There’s a case,” she murmurs.

“Yeah.” He sits up, feels around for his shirt. “If we hurry we can catch the last ferry. The others will be flying in later tonight.”

She feels cold all over, engulfed in a fever. Icy sweat beads up on her skin. “Ferry?”

“Yes.” Aaron pulls the shirt down over his torso. He looks at her and she can’t read his face in the dark. “There’s been a murder on Nantucket.”


	18. Like Surgery

A thin shroud of fog hangs over the land. The sulfur-tinged reek of mud is strong.

Emily stands on the warped boards of the dock, her hands shoved deep into her pockets.

Floodlights have been set up, lashed to a pair of anchored boats. Water jostles through the barnacle-covered pilings, murmuring hollow and full of drips. Light from the floods slices down through the green water and turns it hazy. A raw cold wind blows in off the bay, smelling of crushed shells. Yellow crime scene tape flutters across the corner of the small parking lot. The channel is bordered by hummocks of wiry marsh grass and crime scene tape has been staked out and strung there, too. Caramel-colored seaweed drifts and turns in the silted depths.

The woman floats, limbs spread to the four points of the compass. The silver boundaries of the water’s surface undulate against her skin. Her long skirt spreads out on the water’s surface. Her hair spreads out in a dark corona, a curly mass adrift, tendrils weaving through dreamy currents. The topography of her face has softened past pleasure and sleep and settled into the slack surrender. Her half-opened eyes stare up at a cloudy sky. A deep gash crosses the top of her left breast, its edges pale and clean. Her white lips are parted. Bits of loosened fat drift beneath the surface. Her long hands, upturned like cups. Narrow silver bangles encircle her wrists.

Emily imagines herself in waders. She feels the slippery rocks against the soles of her feet, their rough edges, her toes clenching against the current and languid seaweed brushing soft and tender against her thighs. Encased in cold green water, she tosses handfuls of hot pink petals. She rips them off the wild rose bushes and smells them, moving through the thick salty water, thinking of Ophelia: vibrant in her youth, mercurial in her beauty, drowned in her mad love.

_The cut is so neat_, she thinks. _Like surgery_.

Three local officers stand in a loose knot behind her. They drink coffee, speak with Hotch in low voices. Emily squats, wrapping her arms around her knees. Wisps of mist swirl across the water’s surface. Reflections from the floodlights dance across the pilings. She reaches out, brushes the water with her fingertips. Between thin darts of light she sees white ropes encircling the woman’s ankles, knots tied on the bangles.

“Nantucket CSU has thoroughly documented the scene,” says Hotch, walking up behind her. “All the photos are on their way to Garcia.”

“Did they photograph the rope around her ankles?” The distant sound of the sea whispers on the wind. “It’s tied to the bangles, too.” Emily moves her hair behind her ears. “Did you see that?”

“Yes. I’ve looked the photographs over myself.” He stares out over the marsh grass, turns around and glances at the van. “They did an exceptional job.”

Emily stands, folding her arms. “Now we’re just waiting for the medical examiner.”

“Uh huh.” He touches the center of her back. “There’s nothing more we can do here. We’re both tired.” His voice softens. “Come on. Let’s get out of here and go get some sleep.”

“It’s so neat.” Emily watches the water ripple between the woman’s floating breasts. “It’s like surgery.”

“We’ll have the autopsy report by tomorrow night.”

“He must have used some kind of tranquilizer. There are no defensive wounds, no signs of a struggle. Cause of death looks like…cardiac tamponade, judging by the position of the wound.”

Hotch hands her a pair of white nitrile gloves. “There’s more.”

Emily stands up. She snaps the gloves on. “What?”

Hotch beckons one of the crime scene technicians. She is holding a Ziploc bag in her gloved hand. Hotch gestures to Emily and the tech nods, handing it over.

Emily opens the bag. She pinches the paper between two fingers.

“It’s some kind of note,” he says. “A quote. I don’t recognize it and no one here does either.” Hotch points at the end of the dock. “It was found there, nailed to the piling.”

Emily lifts it out, opening it up. It’s handwritten. Her heart pounds.

_Black ink, capital letters slanting hard to the right, narrow and well-formed; I know how tall the letters are, that they came out of a place of calm, and I can imagine the hand that made them._

She struggles to calm her breath and holds the letter in tight fingers and reads it through twice. She doesn’t recognize the text, but it feels familiar.

“So we’ve got a reference to a body in the water,” she says, folding the note back up and tucking it into the plastic bag. She hands it back to the tech, who drops it into a marked evidence bag. “Which seems too obvious, I mean we can see that part, right?” She shrugs, pulling the gloves off. “There’s probably more meaning to it than that but I have no idea.”

“Reid will look at it when he gets here.”

Emily lets out a deep breath. She nods. “Okay.”

Hotch thanks the local officers. Emily tosses her used gloves into a marked bin and nods and smiles to the CSU team as makes her way to the car. She climbs in, pulls the door closed against the chill wind, and starts the engine. She fiddles with the heat. Hotch climbs into the passenger side and she cranks the output up to full blast, directing the vents toward her knuckles. He fastens his seat belt.

“I feel ridiculous investigating a crime scene in jeans and sandals.” Emily looks over her shoulder, backing the car out of its parking slot. “And I’m freezing.”

“It is chilly.”

Emily brakes, shifts into drive, swings around, and rolls up the gravel road toward the main drag. “Yeah. Welcome to Nantucket.”

Hotch flashes a brief smile. “I wish I could’ve seen it under better circumstances.” He looks out the window. “What I’ve seen of it, though it’s been by night, looks beautiful.”

“If we lose the fog by morning, you’ll see. It really is beautiful.”

“Even if it’s the kind of place only old money can really love?”

“Yes.” Emily grins. “The locals love it too, and there’s no money involved there. After all, someone has to make sure everything’s still here when the summertime rolls back around and the season opens up.” She turns onto the main road, picks up speed. “Though that’s not really true. There’s a strong native population. A lot of it comes from old fishing families that have been here for generations. Nantucket’s kind of schizo that way.”

“Nantucket’s last murder happened in 2004.” Hotch looks at her. “You might remember it: Beth Lochtefeld, murdered in her cottage by her ex-boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I remember that case.” Emily keeps her eyes on the road. “It made it all the way to Dateline.”

 “Prior to that, the last murder here happened in 1983.”

“Yeah, they’ll be talking about this one for years.” Emily glances in the rearview. “This place has no murder rate to speak of. Run the others by me again.”

“All right.” Hotch opens a briefcase and pulls out a folder. He flips it open. “Uh, Francine Oakley, age 35, she was a lawyer with a Virginia firm. She was discovered in Rock Creek Park, on the Washington D.C. side of the line, in the creek. The cause of death and signatures are the same.”

Emily glances at him. “Even the note?”

“No. Well…yes and no. There was a note found on a nearby rock, in the same type of plastic bag, with what appears to be the same handwriting, but the text is different. Francine’s note…” Hotch clears his throat. “Francine’s note reads _Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced_.” He shuffles through the papers. “There are scans of both notes included in the file, if you want to look them over when we get to the hotel.”

“And the second?”

Hotch clicks on the overhead light. “Carla Torres, age 29, a concierge from Corpus Christi.” He leans forward, tilts the folder toward the bulb’s glare. “She was found by the pool man at the Radisson Resort on South Padre Island. Her note was left floating alongside her in a half-inflated plastic bag.” He lets out a long breath. “All three women were found topless in water and all three were wearing skirts, though Francine still had her hose and heels on while the other two didn’t. All three women are olive-skinned brunettes with shoulder length hair or longer and all three share similar builds.”

Emily’s eyebrows twitch. “What are the dates?”

“Francine was found in the early morning of March 3 by a jogger crossing the bridge.” Hotch thumbs through the sheets of paper. “Carla was found the morning of April 1. Now we have Jane Doe, found here just after sunset by a local fisherman who came by after hours to pick up something he left on his boat.” His phone rings. He answers it, watching the bone white shoulder flow by. “Okay, great. I’ve got copies of the files with me. I have no idea how far we are from the hotel—”

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Emily says about fifteen minutes. All right.” He hangs up. “The team has landed and they’re picking up cars. We’ll all arrive at the hotel at about the same time.” He looks at her. “Can you recommend food? Reid says he’s starving.”

“A lot of places close early around here. His best bet’s probably room service.”

Hotch leans his head on the seat. He closes his eyes.

Emily can’t see his face but she reads his dropped eyelids in the lines of his body. She watches the road rush out of the darkness and imagines him: strong hands folded in his lap, knees loose, face smooth and neutral and tilted to the left, orange light from the street lamps chasing shadows across the planes of his face. He is not asleep but he looks asleep. The investigator put to bed, his vulnerability shuttered.

A hollow space opens up inside her.

She thinks about touching him. She imagines the threads of his jeans and his smell, the traces of his skin trapped within them. Relic of his life, fetish of his skin, abrasive enough to rub away all the dark and slithery things. She yearns for the smell of him, the smoke of his metabolism, those worn threads filling her empty panting spirit.

She doesn’t think it will be enough.

_Somewhere on this island there is a bullet etched with my fingerprints. It is lying on the dirt, bearing oils in the shape of my skin. I’ll hunt it down, make it a talisman._

“We’ll be there soon,” she says.


	19. A Rose For Emily

The small conference room is stocked with corkboards, markerboards, a coffeemaker, and a big plate of pastries. Its chalk-white walls are hung with muted watercolor beach scenes. The table is large and heavy, carved out of dark gleaming wood.

A big pine hutch holds plates, cutlery, and coffee cups printed with the hotel’s logo, linens, coffee filters and boxes of sugar packets and dried creamer. The chairs are the kind that stack in the corner. Fluorescent light pours through frosted panels in the suspended ceiling. It bleaches out the paintings, hurts Emily’s eyes and hums straight into her head. The lost hours of sleep swim around beneath her eyelids, threatening to pull them down.

Reid glances around. “Nice place.”                             

Emily takes a sip of hot coffee. “It doesn’t suck.”

Hotch sits down. His eyes flick from hers to Reid’s and back again. He holds her gaze for a brief moment, then turns his attention to the pile of folders on the table. “It’s what the Bureau would pay for.”

“It’s also what was available.” Emily straightens up. “You have no idea how lucky we got. We could’ve easily ended up scattered all over the island. Had this happened in the middle of summer, we would’ve been.”

“Thank God for that,” says Reid.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

“All right.” Morgan sighs, flipping open a folder. “The sooner we catch up, the sooner we can all get to bed.”

Reid takes a huge bite of strawberry Danish. He holds it in his hand as he flips through the pages.

Morgan nods at him. “Do those notes mean anything to you?”

Reid nods and swallows. “Yeah, sure.” He pulls out the scans. “These are all quotes from a short story by William Faulkner titled _A Rose for Emily_. It was first published in the April 30 edition of _Forum,_ 1930\. It’s one of the most well-known American short stories.”

Hotch rubs his forehead. “So what’s the connection?”

Reid shrugs. “Beats me.” He taps the corner of a page with his finger. “Here, in this note, there’s a descriptive passage taken out of context: ‘Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.’ It refers to Emily Grierson, the titular character. Physical description is used as a device in the story to illustrate the passing of time.”

Emily looks into her cup. Reid’s voice falls into soft-focus along with her surroundings. The humming in the lights makes her think of moth’s wings, fluttering and frantic in the face of entrancing light.

“In this case, of course, it could be referring to the location of our Jane Doe, but it could also mean something entirely different. The first note makes no sense at all.”

Reid slides it to Emily. She looks up.

“There’s no way to connect it to the scene or the victim,” Reid goes on. “The second note does contain a reference to reaching thirty years of age, and the victim was twenty-nine years old, but it’s a tenuous connection at best.”

He pushes the second note across the table to Morgan.

Reid shrugs. “So the second note doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, either.”

“Why handwrite them?” Morgan leans on his forearms. “Why not just print it out? If the story’s everywhere, it can’t be too difficult to print a copy off the web.” He looks around. “Printed stuff is pretty much untraceable.”

“Unless he wants the notes to be connected, via the handwriting.” Rossi looks at Hotch. “Has anyone had it analyzed?”

Reid leans back in his chair and brushes crumbs off his shirt. “The first two are a definitely a confirmed match, but I can tell you by just looking at all three together that the third one will be too.”

“I agree with Rossi,” says Hotch. “The handwriting is intentional. It’s an easy way to link all three murders, and if this guy is looking for recognition—ˮ

“He’s not looking for recognition.” Emily puts her cup down and pushes it away. It skids across the polished wood. “It’s not about recognition. It’s about unity.” Her gaze moves around the table. “These three murders are linked to each other. Part of a series. A triptych.” She pauses. “He’s made no contact at all with authorities. The notes aren’t specifically addressed to anyone. So there’s absolutely no reason to think he’s…glory-hounding.”

“Glory-hounding?” Morgan grins. “They teach you that one at Yale?”

“Oh shut up.” She picks up her coffee.

“Hey hey.” He leans back, holding up his hands. “Sorry. Look, man. I was just teasing you.”

“I’m tired.” Her face falls into her hand. She rubs her temples with her fingers. She sighs. “I didn’t mean…look, I’m sorry.” She glances at him. “It’s just been a really long day.” She holds up the mug. “Peace offering?”

“Nah, we’re all good.” He holds up a hand and she smiles. “I hear you, though,” he says. “I’m wiped.” Morgan shifts his attention to Reid. “So what do you know about this story? Are there any clues in it, any themes? Anything that’s some kind of pattern?”

“There’s no coherence to the dump sites.” Emily gets up and dumps the rest of her coffee into a trash can. “Two were in relatively secluded natural bodies of water, one was in a public pool.” She sits back down. “So there’s no obvious connection there.”

“The victims all bear a striking resemblance to each other,” says JJ. “I mean, even in things like weight and height, and age, they’re all within a narrow range.”

Hotch looks at her. “You think we should focus more on victimology.”

“I think it’s the best way to start, yeah.”

“Um, well,” says Reid, brows furrowing, reaching for another pastry, “referring to the story: as in all forms of art, interpretation is subjective, but a pretty popular theme in _A Rose for Emily_ is that of implied necrophilia. The story’s famous for it.”

Rossi’s eyebrows go up. “Any evidence of that on the first two victims?”

Hotch shakes his head. “No, and any bodily fluids would’ve washed off in the water. The rape kits all came back clean and there was no evidence of postmortem trauma to the vaginal or anal areas.”

Emily looks into her coffee cup, spinning it around and around. She lifts an eyebrow. “Did anyone look in the wound?”

“Ew.” JJ makes a face. “Because that’s gross.”

Morgan nods. “Straight up nasty, but not unbelievable.”

“Jeffrey Dahmer was fascinated by the idea of wound sex,” offers Reid.

“No.” Hotch looks at Emily. “I can’t speak for Jane Doe, but the other two wounds were clean.”

Emily shrugs a shoulder. “There is more than one way to have sex with a body.”

“A good point,” says Rossi.

Hotch nods. “I’ll have the medical examiner swab the wound and the throat as well.”

Morgan yawns.

“And on that note.” JJ pushes her chair back and stands up with a little smile. “I’m going to bed.” She shoulders her purse. “Are we meeting back here in the morning?”

“Yeah,” says Hotch. “There’s continental breakfast if you want that. I suppose we could grab a real breakfast after the morning meeting if you all prefer that.”

“I prefer that.” Reid looks at Emily. “Know of any good places?”

She grins. “I know of several.”

“Great.” He stands up. “Good night, everyone.”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning.” Hotch gathers up loose papers and shuffles them into folders. “Go get some sleep, everyone. I’ll straighten up here.”

Emily hangs back, watching the others leave the room. Hotch glances at her. “What?” He wears a small smile. “You didn’t learn that one at Yale?”

“I can’t help it. I’m tired. It annoys me.”

He puts the folders in his briefcase. “What annoys you?”

“Just, you know…” She flips a hand. “Digs at my education level or my family’s money. I’m self-conscious enough and not that it happens all the time, but now we’re here and you all are looking at me like I’m some sort of guide.” She braces her hands against the edge of the table. “Brave the wilderness of…of…lobster bakes and summer homes with names and rich guys in pink pants! Your Guide Emily knows all the best places to catch the native population in action. But remember: this isn’t big game hunting! Only shoot em with your Nikons, please!”

He starts to laugh.

“Hey, it’s not funny.” A corner of her mouth turns up. “I’m serious.”

“It is funny.” He walks to the doorway and puts his hand on the light switch. “But I promise I won’t laugh at your pain.”

“But you’ll smile.”

“Yes.” He does and it pours light into the lines of his face. “I will smile.”

“It’s nice.” She touches his chin. “You should do it more often.”

Emily moves through the doorway and into a corridor. Hotch turns out the light, closes the door.

Their steps fall into rhythm.

Her eyes glide over the patterns in the carpet, the wall sconces. She soaks up the details, using them to diffuse the images of the unnamed woman floating in the water, break them up, disassemble their magnetism. She counts the sideboards, table lamps, shades of blue. She thinks about structure: all those hidden joists at right angles, the plaster, insulation, the thin layers of paint and the wind and the foggy sky beyond.

They step outside.

A muggy wind blows across the brick walkways, flipping Emily’s ponytail from one shoulder to the other.

He looks around. “Now, where is room 17?”

Emily points. “Over there.”

The bricks gleam with moisture. They walk around the edge of a courtyard and she listens to his footfalls, the slight echo of them and how they overlap hers, how hers are softened by the rustle of new spring leaves. In the darkness the plantings look dense and wild, robbed of their elegance by the strategic placement of small floodlights. The shadows churn, tossed about on the silver shingles, and skitter across the paths.

They move up a narrow walkway between calf-high lights and push open the door, moving out of the wind and into a short white-painted hallway.

Emily feels Aaron trapped inside with her, caught in the silence, Aaron and not Hotch inside four walls; it’s a difference subtle as a handful of degrees in temperature. She looks up at his profile. His heat hovers near her skin, always respectful; a gentleman waiting for permission.

“Hey,” she says, voice soft.

He looks at her and she takes his hand, holds just his fingers with her own. The stone in his face turns to water, dozens of subtle expressions flowing through him.

“Do you—”

“Come to my room with me and give me a kiss.”

Aaron slides a hand across her back, lets it fall. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

She turns. “It was a good idea six hours ago.”

“Six hours ago we were both on vacation.” He moves his hands down her upper arms. “Now we’re both on a case.”

Emily steps back and unlocks her door. “There are going to be cases in the future.” She pushes it open, tosses her key card onto a small table. “What then? Are we supposed to turn it off every time we get on the jet?”

“I…” He sighs and closes the door behind him. “I don’t know.”

Emily turns on a small lamp. The light bounces off a red bedspread and gleams on a four-poster frame. The lone window offers a view of shrubbery and parking spaces. Her suitcase is on her bed, sprawled open. She walks up to it and retrieves a grooming kit from its zippered pocket.

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I didn’t think…I guess I just got knocked out of my groove. Look.” He shakes his head, following her into the bathroom. He steps around so he can look into her face. “We don’t need speculation derailing anyone’s concentration. If someone knocks on my door and I’m not there, or someone sees me leaving this room in the morning…” He pauses. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen, and you know it. It’s better to wait and do this on home soil.”

She steps away. “What is it with you and home soil?” She unzips the case, takes out her toothbrush, a little tube of toothpaste, a small bottle of Listerine. “I’m still here, Aaron. I’m here, even if this isn’t home.” She glances at him. “Am I not allowed to want you while we’re on a case?”

“Yes, yes, of course you are.”

“Because I have to tell you, being on a case doesn’t change anything for me.”

“It doesn’t change anything for me, either.” He reaches out, touches her waist. “Thank you for saying it. It’s nice to hear.”

Their eyes lock. She holds her breath in the space of a heartbeat and lets it out in a long sigh. “I can’t sway you, can I?”

His voice softens. “I would prefer it if you didn’t.”

She pushes past him. “All right.”

“Emily…”

“It’s okay.” She pushes the suitcase aside and sits on the bed. “You don’t want me to push you and I won’t.” She kicks off her sandals. “I’ll respect your boundaries, even if I think they suck. Even if this home soil fetish of yours makes absolutely no sense to me.” She eases the elastic out of her hair and tosses it onto the nightstand. Without looking at him, she makes a beckoning gesture. “Come here.”

He does.

“Kiss me.” Her head turns and she looks up. “Just a kiss.” She smiles, looping her pinky around his. “I swear.”

His smile softens. He bends over and touches her neck, her eyes. He lifts her face. He lowers his mouth for a brief kiss.

She touches his forearm. Her breath comes faster.

He pulls back, kisses her forehead.

“Good night,” he whispers.

She nods. “I don’t like it.”

He kisses the high curve of her cheek. “I don’t either.”

She takes his hand. “You better go if you’re going.”

“Right. Good night.”

“Good night.”


	20. Spider's Silk

Emily sits on her bed in the half-dark, looks around.

The room is spare. Its utilitarian feeling leaks through such grace-notes as the four-poster bed and fringed cream-colored throws and two-tone walls; it is a tool loosening the grip of her mind.

It slides back down into swirling water where seaweed breathes on the back of her neck and tickles the backs of her knees.

Inside her imagination, she lies on the rocks, looks through a floating skirt and a drift of hair and into lances of floodlight. The woman’s sprawled limbs trace a star-shaped shadow.

All of her agitated thoughts rise like tiny bubbles, screaming their way to the surface.

She closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath and it tastes like dust, the harsh sound of it startling. Her eyes open. Wind gusts against the window and shadows of branches climb the walls. Moisture clings in fat drops to the panes.

_Will he change his mind?_

She sits cross-legged. She faces the door, meditates on the shapes of the words.

_Will he change his mind? _

She imagines the shape of Aaron moving through the courtyards, the tree trunks, the arbors heavy with roses, footlights throwing thin shadows up his ankles, the determination in his body propped up by something softer. The corners of his mouth are unlaced somehow, _en déshabillé_.

Emily turns, stretching across the bed, and grabs her cell phone off the nightstand.

_How long to wait? How long?_

She scrolls down the log of received calls until an unfamiliar number lights up. Her heart kicks out a line of slow, hard beats, underlining the force of her breath. She checks the details, notes the time it came in. She glances at the door. She holds her breath.

Silence.

Her lips tighten and she hits the green button. She lifts the phone to her ear. Each ring vibrates with a tiny rush of adrenaline. Her eyes slide toward the window. At the fifth ring there is a click. Her whole body goes cold. Signal-processed air hums. Her fingers tighten, slippery on a thin layer of sweat.

A faint rustling breaks the white noise. “Hi.”

Emily grabs her mouth and angles the phone, lifting up her nose away so he won’t hear her panting.

“Did you like her?”

Her heart struggles inside her rib cage like a wild thing.

“I’m surprised.” George chuckles. “I didn’t think you’d keep this number.”

She reins in her breath. “W-Where are you?”

He breathes into the phone and the soft even cadence crawls up the inside of her skin.

“Where are you?” Her voice trembles. “A-Are…are you here?”

“Emily?”

Her pulse throbs in her ears. “Yeah?”

“Is your heart beating really, really fast?”

Her face flushes. “Yes.”

His chin scrapes the phone. “Where are you?”

“I’m in a hotel room.” Her fingers gather up the bedspread and twist it. “At the Nantucket Inn. Where are you?”

“Are you alone?”

Her mouth goes dry. “Yes.”

His voice turns husky. “Now why haven’t you answered my question?”

“You won’t answer mine.”

“Did you like her?”

“You did…” Emily swallows. Her stomach clenches. “You did a nice job.” Heat creeps through her and she presses her knees together. “You mimicked Francesca’s crime scene…you did it almost perfectly.”

There’s a pause. “Almost?”

“H-Her wound.” She inhales. “In her chest.” Her eyes squeeze shut. “It wasn’t as straight as yours,” she whispers. “It wasn’t as clean.”

“Are you horny?” The timbre of his voice scrapes gravel. “You are, aren’t you?”

“Are you…” Her voice bottoms out. She swallows and it’s dry. “H-Here?” She half-whispers. “Are you still on island?”

“How did seeing her make you feel?” His breath wells up through the words. “How do you feel right now? What’s it like in your mind? Tell me, Emily. I want to know.”

“I don’t…I d-don’t know. I don’t know. There was so much, there is…there _is_ so much going on in my head. I-I’m shocked…and angry...and…” The last word slides out in a high thin whisper. “Confused.”

“And wet. I hear it in your voice. It does funny little things when you’re wet. It cracks up…it cracks down.” A breathless chuckle. “Put your hand down there. Stick your fingers in. See if I’m right.”

Emily looks at her jeans.

“Are you doing it?”

She reaches down, unfastens her zipper. “No.”

“You want know what I’m thinking about right now?”

“Yes.” She shoves her hand beneath the tightness of the denim, scrapes her knuckles against the zipper’s teeth. “I want to know.”

“I’m thinking about you. Imagining your fingers in that wound, sliding under those nice straight edges.” His breath grows heavy. “The fat. It’s so soft but I bet you didn’t know that. It yields, like it wants to slick your way to the bone.”

Her eyes close and her mouth trembles open.

“That cut goes all the way down into her heart.”

“George where are you?”

“I carved it special.”

“Where are you, goddammit?” Her breath catches in her teeth. “Where _are_ you?”

“I’m right here.” The words, wrapped up in honeyed gravel. “Put your fingers inside your cunt.” He crawls into her need. “Wait until it starts to twitch.”

She pins the phone to her shoulder with her chin. She shoves the denim down to her knees.

“Are you doing it?”

She takes down her knickers. “No.”

“What’s that noise?”

Emily kicks off her jeans. “It’s the blankets moving.”

“You’re in bed?”

Her hand rests on the rise and fall of her belly. “Yes. I’m in bed.”

“You naked?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I would very much like to know.”

“Are you here?” She pushes her palm along the crest of her pubic bone. “Where are you? Can I come to you? A-Are you on the other side of one of these walls?” The words are agonized. “Are you in the parking lot?” She pants. “Are you…a-are you…on the other side of…my door?”

“Do you still smell like you’ve been fucked?”

Her fingers make soft wet sounds. “Yes,” she sighs. “Yes.”

“Put your fingers inside.”

Emily tilts her hips, slips them in. Her eyebrows knot.

“How does it feel?”

“Good.” She swallows. “It feels good.”

“Are you twitching?”

“If you’re here, on this fucking goddamned island, I…” She breathes hard, swallows. “I want you. I want your fingers. I want your hands. I want your cock.”

“Are you naked, Emily?”

“O-Only from the waist down.”

“What’s your room number?”

Her lips pull back from her teeth. “S-Seventeen.”

The phone clicks.

Her fingers work faster as her eyes burn. Her breath jigs and jags. She smears snot off her nose with the inside of her wrist. Streaks of salt dry onto her face. She spreads her legs, lets out a frustrated humming sigh. She rocks her hips up into her busy palm.

The knock on her door is soft. She scrambles off the bed and runs to the peephole. Her damp hands curl around her face.

She presses her mouth to the crack. “Who is it?”

“Let me in.”

Emily flips the safety bolt, turns the lock.

She opens the door and George pushes through, wriggles into the room. He takes hold of her waist and pulls her into him, slams the door with the small of his back. Her lungs ache. She thunks the bolt into place.

He turns her around, flattens her spine into the door. Quick and ragged, they breathe the same breath. They looks down. With trembling hands, she unfastens his pants.

He lifts her up, scrapes the back of her scalp against the plastic-framed details of Massachusetts state hospitality taxes. Emily wraps her legs around him, He pushes his cock in. It aches, rams her breath up into her throat. She slides her tongue up the side of his neck and he squeezes her buttocks, digs his fingers in. Bruises bloom. She grunts.

Mouths crash in a misaligned kiss. Teeth clash, split his bottom lip. The door rattles in its frame. The metal of his blood floods her mouth. Her nostrils flare and she shivers, smelling it, her saliva prickling under her tongue.

Blood mingles with spit, runs in a hot ribbon down his chin. She licks it up and he moans, swallows her breath.

Emily pulls his hair. He finds the curve of her neck and bites down. His teeth dig harder and Emily growls.

He takes her off the door. He shudders and goes onto his knees, slides down, drops her spread thighs across his hips; he braces his arms on either side of her shoulders. He takes a hand off the door, wraps loose fingers around her throat. Her eyelashes flutter. Her mouth quivers open. She arches into the labor of his lungs, rubs at her clit. Her eyes squeeze shut. Her breath flutters.

His hand tightens. Her hand moves faster.

His fingers squeeze and her eyebrows furrow. He looks into her face. He shakes her neck. She whimpers. He leans his forehead against hers.

She tightens up, grunts through the spasms. His thumbs the trembling corners of her open mouth.

She pants.

He pulls back. He runs his forearm across his mouth and glances at the streaks on his wrist. He looks at the blood smeared on her chin.

George backs away.

She runs her tongue into the corner of her mouth. She watches him.

He stands up, staggers back.

She wipes her lips with a languid thumb, brings it to her eye level. Her pupils dilate and the room drowns in dim light. She rubs the thin stickiness between her fingers. She licks her mouth, smiles a little.

His balance wavers. He plants a foot on her hip, tries to kick her aside. She shoves his foot away. He snarls, grabs her by the hair.

She bares her teeth and digs her nails into his wrist. He growls, yanks his arm back.

She kicks his feet out from under him and he rips hair out of her scalp. She grunts, inhales, cries out. Pain sparks across her vision, fills it with water. She snarls and slaps her hair out of his loosening fingers.

Emily stands, watches him unfold himself. She breathes hard. Salt stings her eyes, rims them.

He rises to his feet. He turns in a circle and she stalks the carpet behind him. He looks over his shoulder and his eyes meet the raw consciousness in her gaze.

George lunges for the doorknob, twists it.

Her long dark hairs hang trapped in his knuckles, drifting in the unsettled air like spider’s silk.

He yanks the door open and hallway light rushes in, spills across her feet.

“You’re gonna run.” Emily’s voice shakes. She blinks several times, eyes widening, her breath uneven. “I don’t believe this.”

He shoulders through the doorway and she smells the sweat on his skin and then it’s gone, he’s gone, heat and scent eddying away into an ocean of clean carpet.

She walks into the doorframe, stands there.

She looks down the blank hallway, mesmerized by the storm of his footfalls.


	21. There Once Was A Girl (II)

She is in the shower, washing her hair, when a handful of bars from an old song crams itself sideways into her brain.

_This moment is so, so far away from nineteen eighties pop._

Emily steps out of the shower and grabs one of the folded towels off the back of the toilet. She dries off, wandering into the room, feeling along the top of the bed with one hand for her clothes. She gets dressed, slides her feet into flip-flops, grabs her phone and her keys. She shrugs into a sweatshirt and slips through the door, runs out into the parking lot. She buckles into her car. She sits there for a moment, her hands on the wheel, the tropical rain slapping into the windshield.

_Why do I keep thinking about that?_

She starts the engine. The scenery spins, dizzying in the sweep of headlights. The road rises up out of the gloom. Yellow lines etched bright into the pavement glow in cones of rain-lashed light.

_There was that summer, and the fight I had with my mother—hacking off my hair with a knife while she screamed at me and I threw the hair in her face, me digging my heels in but it didn’t do any good. We left in the morning anyway, and I landed in Massachusetts with hair that looked like it had been stuck in a blender because I refused to let my mother’s hairdresser fix it. For four days straight I refused to leave the house. I bought an electric razor a week after that and tried to shave diamonds into the side of my head, like Cyndi Lauper. I tried dyeing it, too. I think._

She drives toward the western end of the island, wipers scraping water, flicking silver droplets off into the streaming darkness: thunk thunk, thunk thunk.

_I hated it. I hated it the way I’d hated it in the summer of eighty-five but I think I hated it more, truly loathed it in eighty-seven because I’d gotten so much older in the interim. Teen years are like dog years, seven to one and more than enough to ripen my disdain. I hated Nantucket because my mother loved it, but I really hated it because her desperation disgusted me, her longing to be “one of them,” to fit in with the old families. Their money had been around forever and would be around forevermore; they paid the natives who fished in the winters to air out their thirty-room cottages before they moved in; they took over the island in their Nantucket Reds and sport coats, their yachts, their sleek imported cars and they could sniff out each other’s colonial Massachusetts blood._

She reaches deep down inside herself, finding the texture of the roads and reading the configurations of buildings. She steers into the corners of the road and thinks about her bullet: ordinary shell, levered out of her chamber and handled without thought. She feels it tumble loose from her fingers, imagines it bouncing on the pine spill. She tries to triangulate its position in her memory.

The rain ticks on its brass casing like a clock running down.

_I walked around a lot. Restless and prowling those wholesome streets. What else was there to do? Sixteen years old and I couldn’t get into any of the bars, not that I wanted to. The preppy rich kids hated me with my ripped fishnets and high cutoffs and black lipstick. We hated each other with the zeal reserved for the unknown. We each feared somehow becoming the other, that personality was contagious—and I suppose it is at that age, now that I think about it, all of us undecided beings growing out of control, contained and shaped by our families: either for them or against them. They looked at me and feared the shivering cold, the starvation of the outside. I looked at them and the slow chokehold of herd membership tightened around my throat._

She wipes her eyes with one hand. The road keeps coming and coming, unrolling into a narrow corridor of brush.

_All of my rebellion. All of that effort. Did it work?_

She slows the car, pulls it off the road. She pulls off the shoulder. She climbs out into a wet buffeting wind and holds her sweatshirt’s hood tight around her cheeks. She climbs up to the road, following the line where the pavement ends. Dune grass whips around her bare ankles. She looks up. There are more lights set back from the road, more people than there were the night before, warm panes of glass floating in the dark.

_I’ll get my bullet. I’ll find it, take it down to the beach, rub it all over with the cuff of my hoodie, and throw it into the water. I’ll stand in the rain and dream of the mainland. I’ll erase my fingerprint from this place once and for all._

Emily walks toward the rambling house, its shingles dull beneath the overcast night. She follows clumps of bleary white beach roses down onto the driveway, old pavement buckled and split by the island winters. She walks onto the grass. The trees crowd together and deepen the dark. Her feet are slow. She touches things as she passes them, guiding herself into the gloom: a sodden petal, a thin branch. Thick pine roots push up through the thin acrid earth. There is little light. Emily takes a deep breath.

_There once was a girl on Nantucket._

She holds still, listening to the rain as it drips down through the branches. The humid air smells sweet and raw. Distant waves hiss and rumble, both flattened and stirred up by the rain. She stands in the center of the clearing and lets her eyes adjust. She spies a gleam, then another one. Her pupils loosen up and dark gray light floods her eyes, bringing little bits of shine. She turns in a slow circle. Twigs pop and snap beneath her feet.

_Water_. _Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink._

She studies the trunks of the trees. She walks over to the closest one, rests her hand on its rough wet bark.

_There once was a girl. She shaved the side of her head, hacking it down first with a pair of scissors, clots of hair sticking to the porcelain. She looked into her own eyes and tried to make designs and failed because it was a regular shaver and what she wanted was clippers first, then a shaver wielded by delicate and artistic fingers. A couple of half-assed tries and she gave up, shaved an irregular bald spot into the side of her haymop and called it good. She unplugged the shaver, thought it didn’t look half bad: a little gel maybe and a tease, some good spikes worked in, and it was almost cool. She wanted red streaks in it, but on island there was only Kool-Aid and Sun-In. _

_The girl in the mirror, though, she had different thoughts. Part of her, in memory, was still in an alleyway in Nantucket Town. She leaned up against a brick wall, smoking a cigarette and sweltering in the remnants of a tropical heat wave, mouthing the words to one of those pop songs that she secretly loved, explaining to some überprep from ‘Sconset that she doesn’t fuck guys._

Emily shakes her head, measuring her steps, careful not to trip on the roots. The wind blows at her back, racing through her wet hood on its way to the ocean.

_But that didn’t happen. _

A pinpoint of brassy light. She drops onto her knees.

_I was in that alleyway smoking one of those nasty Gauloises Brunes. I was. It was hot out, that much is true, and there was a jukebox somewhere blasting out _I’m Looking for a New Love_. I knew all the words. I even moved a little to the beat, tapping a foot on the cobbles. I leaned up against the back end of a building, like a prostitute in an old Hollywood movie. _

_But there was no überprep from ‘Sconset._

She brushes light fingers across the ground. She feels her way toward the shine. She touches a candy wrapper, pulls it out of the pine needles.

_Was there?_

She tucks the wrapper into her pocket.

_He asks her: _so how do girls do it?

_Sixteen-year-old Emily holds her cigarette and stares at him, stares directly into his eyes, and in the background of this scene the song changes. It’s just like a cue, so she takes a step back to look him over: tall but not too tall, muscular but no gym-rat, mussed-up brown hair with highlights straight out of a J. Crew catalogue and a voice packed full of Massachusetts vowels. The eyes, though. She takes a long drag, slants the stream of smoke upward. Nothing money-bred about those. _

_She transfers her cig to her left hand and crooks her fingers in a come-hither gesture. He bends down. _They lick_, she says into his ear. _

That doesn’t sound too hard_, he says and her eyebrows go up. _

You wanna fuck like a girl?

_He holds her eyes. He’s good at it, even though she keeps trying to duck out from beneath his gaze. _

_He holds her eyes and gives her a weird one-sided smile. _Why not?

A knife slides beneath her chin. The flat part presses up, its keen edge burrowing close to her skin.

She takes in a breath.

A bullet bounces onto the ground.

“Looking for something?”


	22. The Überprep From 'Sconset

The sensation of metal slices into the moment and separates one second from the next. She goes still, measures the seconds in her heart. Dreamy adrenaline shoots into her bloodstream. It backs up in burning drifts, sizzles deep into her limbs. Her muscles twitch. The sharp increase in her breath sounds delirious, agonized, obscene.

“Want to know what I’m thinking right now, George?”

He sets his grip on the blade, the tendons inside his forearm popping against the side of her neck. He gathers up a big handful of her hair, winds it tight across his knuckles. His breath comes in irregular bursts.

“You want to know?” Emily licks her lips, struggles to control her lungs. “I’ve been telling myself stories.”

He makes a fist. His breath fills her ear, skates across her neck, puffs on the side of her face. She smells Listerine and the thick burn of testosterone.

“Stories that aren’t real. Isn’t that…isn’t that something? They aren’t memories but they act like memories.” Her ribs expand along with his, collapse along with his: rise and fall, back and forth, like a dance. “That’s weird, isn’t it?” Her voice softens. “Don’t you think?” Her head turns. Her neck relaxes. “Why would I do that?”

George yanks on her hair, bending her throat toward the sky. He hisses breath. Rain hits her nose and runs into her eyes. Wind hisses through the trees and the rain quickens, rattling the branches and tapping the ground, drumming a fine mist up out of the dirt. She squeezes her eyes shut.

“Now you’re thinking about it, right?” Her fingers spread apart, rest on her thighs. “How it’s like a hot one…like a girl who’s really into it.”

“I wanna kill you.” His voice comes unbolted, scatters across the bottom of his throat. “That’s what I’m thinking about.” The blade twitches. “And that’s all I’m thinking about.”

“So do it,” she whispers. “You’ve got me. There’s a knife on my neck.” Her heart knocks against her ribs. “I can’t stop you. You know I can’t stop you.”

“I mean it,” he growls.

“I know.”

The hand on the knife tightens. The muscles in his arms draw into themselves, coiled.

Emily’s breath quickens.

“Th-There once was a girl.” Her voice gets tangled up in her throat. “O-On N-Nantucket and in h-her m-mi…” Tears spill down her cheeks. “Sh-Sh-She was si-s-sixteen. It was the s-summer o-of the basement and the…the maggots and…and…” She gulps, her body shaking. “The überprep from ‘Sconset, who isn’t real,” she whispers. “He isn’t real.”

George’s arm starts to relax and then it tightens up again, trembles. His breath changes.

“So it doesn’t matter. I-I just made hih-him up.” Emily’s chest heaves. “He isn’t real. He isn’t real.”

He lowers his voice. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s not…he’s n-not…” She swallows. “Just a guy, I don’t know. Eighteen years old, maybe, t-talking to this girl in cutoff sh-sh-horts and ripped fishnets and those f-fingerless gloves, you nnnn-know, a guy from ‘Sconset.” She catches her breath. “Siasconset,” she whispers. “The…the v-village.”

“I know where Siasconset is.”

“S-So the girl tells him that she doesn’t fuck guys, a-and…she…me, I’m she, she’s me—I’m surprised because he a-asks.” Emily fights against the urge to hyperventilate. “N-No wuh-one ever asks. N-No one ever did. Not back then.”

Something stretches out inside his voice. “Asked you what?”

She swallows. “H-How girls…fuck.”

George inhales through clenched teeth. His hand slides on a slow downward angle, the blade searing into her skin.

She starts to sob and her bladder lets go, heat spilling down the insides of her thighs.

He yanks on her hair, turns the knife over, uses the dull side to scrape up the spill of blood. She whimpers. His lips brush the top of her ear. She shivers.

“So,” he breathes. “How do girls do it?”

Her eyes close. “They lick,” she whispers.

“That doesn’t sound too hard.”

Her throat tremors, closes up.

“I’ll tell you something else.” He sits back. “You forgot the black lipstick.”

Fresh tears fill her eyes. Their heat mingles with the cold rain on her face. “I didn’t forget,” she whispers.

“And then…” He sounds thoughtful. “The beach. Surfside. Is that right?”

Emily crawls forward a little, coughing, and makes a choking sound. She throws up onto the dirt.

“There was that bottle of Boone’s Farm and a blanket. You lied about your name, though.”

Emily turns, wet hair sticking to her face. The cut on her neck bleeds into the collar of her sweatshirt. She spits out the last strings of bile, wiping her mouth with the back of a dirty hand. “So did you.”

The rain runs in and out of the lines on his face and drips off his chin. The whites of his eyes gleam. His t-shirt and jeans cling to his body and his limp hands rest at his sides, knife held in loose curled fingers.

Emily’s eyes flicker toward it, move up to his face.

“Susie.” He smiles a little. “Something like that. Isn’t that right?”

She nods. “John?”

He smirks. “My father’s name.”

She looks into his eyes. The doors behind them swing open.

_Higher she says the J. Crew hair is soft and restless beneath her fingers she’s lying on a beach with her shorts off and the überprep from ‘Sconset is sprawled down there his tongue in her cunt and it’s blind hesitant but with a nudge from her hand and a murmured word it finds its way it’s a clear night and the stars fill the sky like a Technicolor plate of the universe the Milky Way and the smudges of galaxies burn crazy bright against the velvet black of space she’s a little bit drunk the tiniest bit tipsy all the connections in her mind loosened just enough to set her adrift her eyes close stars swimming through the darkness behind her closed lids and she hums her breath singing its approval and she’s not thinking of girls or boys or Francesca or her own fingers she’s thinking about the stars her steady climb up into them with a boost on the tongue of this strange boy who doesn’t want to stick her with his prick doesn’t want a blowjob in return and holds her hand as he licks because he thinks he has to because he thinks she won’t come without it and Emily craves the tightness of his fingers as she brushes up against the threshold bumps it falls over into a deep trench full of throbbing and he moans for her and later on he turns onto his back opens up his jeans takes out his cock and asks her to watch so she holds his other hand when the jizz comes out it’s pearly arcing like fish glossed up by starlight he looks up into the sky and tells her that he thinks about weird things when he comes needles going into the skin a picture of the human anatomy he saw once ripped-up dirty nylons and that’s okay she says thinking of the gash in Francesca’s chest the tiny fish swimming in and out and says me too me too_

They kneel in the rain, face to face, sitting on their heels.

She touches the cut on her neck. “So it’s all real.” It stings. She hisses in a tiny breath. “It happened.”

He nods. “Yuh.”

Emily lunges forward. She snatches up the knife, plunges it into his belly.

The inside of him is thick, gristly, resistant to the blade. His shocked diaphragm tightens. His struggle to breathe vibrates up into the palm of her hand. He grunts. She holds the knife, keeps it steady as he rolls back and unfolds across the ground. She reverses her grip on the knife. His breath runs aground.

She leans down, cups the angle of his trembling jaw. The muscles tighten beneath his skin. She moves up over him, brings her lips close to his straining mouth. She searches for his eyes in the dark. His breath flutters. She strokes the rough grain of his cheek, inhales his breath. She kisses his cool lips and he starts to shake all over.

His fingers wrap around her hand and squeeze, trapping them between his bones and the handle of the knife. She sighs and her mouth goes soft. He lifts his face. Her tongue grazes his palate, nuzzles the tip of his tongue. She twists the knife. He screams. Blood wells up, hot all over her hand.

Her breath comes faster.

“I’m sorry, George.” She bumps her nose into his cheek.  “I’m calling 911.”

His grip tightens.

“Shhhhh, don’t move.” She fumbles her phone out of her pocket, dials with her thumb. She puts it to her ear. “Hello, this Emily Prentiss with the FBI.” She looks toward the back of the house. “I need you to trace my location via GPS signal and send an ambulance immediately. I’ve got a man down with a knife in the abdomen. Also, I need you to contact the BAU team headquartered at the Nantucket Inn and I need you to send a squad car.”

She looks down at him. Rain runs off her chin, drips onto his mouth.

“The wounded man is George Foyet.” She strengthens her voice. “Yes, that’s right…F-O-Y-E-T.”

A corner of his mouth twitches into a weak smile. “Y-You’re…always surprising me, I…” He pulls in a pained breath and holds it, eyebrows knotting up. “Always…liked that.” He bares his teeth at the pain. “About you.”

“It’s a small island. They’ll be here quickly. I don’t want to have to stab you again.”

“But you will,” he whispers. “If you have to.”

“Yes.” She moves a hand over his hair. “I will.”

“Why won’t you…kill me?”

Sirens howl in the distance. Red flashes of light cut into the shadows and stutter through the wet branches. She picks up his other hand, lacing her stained fingers through his. She squeezes. Headlights sweep across the clearing.

“Because I can control myself.”


	23. Drowning

She sees Morgan, silhouette backlit by the pulsing blue and red lights.

“Emily?”

She lets go of George’s hand. “Over here!”

“Keep on shouting!”

“I’m over here, Morgan.” She positions herself on her knees, grits her teeth, and yanks out the knife. George groans. His breath whistles tight and fast. She transfers the knife to one hand, rests her palm on his forehead. “Make sure the paramedics watch their feet. It’s slippery when you get past the pavement.”

Morgan stops and yells over his shoulder.

Emily looks at George. Her voice lowers, gets soft around the edges. “Still awake?”

His eyelids roll all the way up. Droplets of water hang heavy on the lashes. His neck twists, the flashing lights outlining the shape of his nose. “The trick is,” he sighs. “To not…pass out from…the pain.”

She withdraws her hand. “Can you stay conscious?”

“I…can do it.”

Morgan makes his way down into the clearing. His gun is drawn, pointed at the ground. “What the hell happened here?”

“It’s all right.” The rain drums the top of her head, runs through her hair and down the sides of her face.  She glances at Morgan. “I have it under control.”

His eyebrows lift. “I see that.”

The paramedics move up behind him, circle around, and filter into the clearing. They set down a perimeter of equipment, get to work.

Emily stands, unsteady on her feet. Her cuffs, her jeans, her collar are soaked in blood. She looks around, clutching the knife in one hand.

Morgan holsters his gun and rushes to her side. “Come on,” he says, taking up her arm. “We need to get you out of here.”

“I’m all right.” She cranes her head around, looks at the paramedics. “I can walk.”

“There’s no telling how much blood you’ve lost.”

“Most of it is his.” She looks at him. “I’m okay, Morgan.” Her teeth chatter. “Really.”

“Come on. You’re going to the hospital. We need to get your neck looked at.”

“Okay.”

Morgan puts an arm around her shoulders. He’s warm and solid; the faint lingering smell of his aftershave pulls the lost and reeling pieces of her back into the moment. Emily leans into him. The cut on her neck stings, starts to throb. Her feet weave crooked patterns on the ground.

A pair of police officers hustle past, running down the grassy slope and into the trees.

At the bottom of the driveway she sees Hotch, the features of his face drawn into a delicate tightness that shatters as he sees her. Emily’s body starts to shudder. Fear and worry, tenderness and relief, shards of emotion soften in his eyes. Morgan’s arm tightens. He takes his time, climbing with her to the back of the ambulance. He jumps up inside and digs around for a blanket. He finds one and jumps down, shakes it open, drapes it around her shoulders.

“I can ride,” she says.

“Ride?” Morgan looks at her, then glances at the open ambulance. “You mean ride with Foyet?”

“He can’t do anything.” Emily tightens the blanket around herself. “He’s been incapacitated by a stab wound. Besides, there’ll be a police officer in there. With a sidearm.”

“Emily, you do not have to ride to the hospital with Foyet. I’ll drive you.”

She looks at the grove of trees. “It’ll be fine.”

“No, it won’t be.” Morgan folds his arms. “Because it’s not happening. Look at me. He tried to kill you, the hospital is only three miles away, and we’re leaving. Right now.”

Hotch holds up a hand. “Derek…enough.”

“It’s not far. Someone can drive her.”

Emily shivers.

Hotch steps forward. “I’ll ride with you, if you want to ride.” He curves gentle hands around her upper arms. “How’s that?”

Emily holds up the knife. “I need an evidence bag for this.”

Hotch looks to Morgan. “Do you have any gloves?”

“Yeah.” He pulls them on. “I’ll take care of it.”

The paramedics lug the gurney up onto the driveway, one of them holding aloft a bag of blood. Hotch moves closer to Emily, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He watches them load the gurney. He looks at her. “Are you sure about this?”

She watches as they roll it in, securing it into place. She nods. “I’m sure.”

“Okay. Come on.”

Once inside, the doors slam shut and the ambulance begins to roll, sirens on and piercing. The inside sways up over the potholes and the frost heaves to the road. One of the paramedics looks at the cut on her neck.

Emily watches the other two of them as they work on Foyet, connecting him to monitors and fitting an oxygen tube into his nostrils, injecting him full of painkillers. Chemical repose softens the angles in his face. His mouth relaxes, the dimple in his cheek unfurling. His eyes go glassy. The lids loosen, irises rolling around beneath them.

The paramedic touches the bruised skin on her neck, dries it before pulling the edges together. He secures them with strips of butterfly tape. He covers it with a pad of gauze, takes Emily’s hand, and brings her fingers up to hold it in place.

“They’re gonna want to stitch this up in the ER,” he says. “This’ll hold you for now.”

Emily nods. “Thank you.”

Hotch holds her close. He lowers his voice, speaks into her hair. “You don’t have to look at him.”

The vibration of the road rises up through the floor. The big engine kicks up through its chain of gears. The casters rattle. The handcuff clinks against the metal.

“I know,” she says.

She looks at the blood bag swinging on a hook in the ceiling, watches it deflate, clear plastic spaces opening up in the red as the walls of the bag close in and start to touch each other. Red tubing curls around itself once before disappearing into plastic hardware taped to the inside of George’s elbow. One of the paramedics kneels over him, holding steady pressure on the wad of gauze packed into the wound. The look on his face is intense, serene.

A flood of questions rises: _is he still conscious? This look on his face, is it normal? Will he remember me sitting here? _Her eyes move from face to face._ Are these the kind of people who would give too much morphine and when the rubber hits the road plead miscommunication, or illegible paperwork, or a finger slipping on the wrong end of the syringe? Do they want to? They know what he is. Would they do it if I wasn’t here? Would it be the secret that binds them? I don’t know what too much morphine looks like; I can’t read the drugs as they write in their delirious language across his body. I don’t dare ask. I hardly dare to think. I don’t dare do anything but sit here, in Aaron’s arms, looking around, memorizing faces and details_.

The blood flows down the tube, spills into his vein, spreads out in his body with all the odds stacked against it. An army of cells flung at the front lines and most of them coming home, dead with a lack of oxygen.

“What did I hit?”

Aaron moves a hand over her hair. His body is warm, the skin stupefying. “What?”

Emily ignores him, her eyes fixed on the pair of white gloved hands holding down George’s wound. “For organs.” She looks at the paramedic’s face. “What did I hit?”

He blinks out of the zone, looks up at her. “Uh. Looks like stomach and spleen.”

“Is that bad?”

“Well,” he says. “It ain’t good.”

“How many of these have you seen in the field?”

He turns pink. “None, ma’am.”

“Oh.” Emily pauses. “Do you think he’ll make it?”

“I don’t know.” She watches the struggle in his face, how he sifts through words and searches for the answer he thinks she wants to hear. “It’s possible.”

She presses the folded gauze tighter into her neck. “I wasn’t trying to kill.”

“Could be you did a fine job with that.” His smile is small and hard and full of respect. “I don’t know. Time will tell, I guess.”

“Yes.” The inside of Emily’s mind slides onto a sea of serenity. Each surrounding detail gains a radiant luster. She wonders if she’s going into shock. “It will, won’t it?”

The wheels come to an abrupt halt. The rear doors fly open and Emily turns to see trauma-garbed personnel swarm the pavement. The paramedics yank the gurney out into the wet night. The legs rattle and fall, clunking into place, and the paramedics run toward the ER doors at the doctors’ heels, letting information fly like arrows. Each bit finds its target, quivering there in orders barked and decisions made. The cacophony sweeps into the hospital and fades out behind the double doors.

Hotch climbs out first. He holds up his hands. Emily takes them.

She shifts her weight and the world acquires a strange weak quality, slipping sideways. All of her sensory input feels on the verge of pulling up anchor and drifting like smoke through a gentle wind.

She pauses. “I’m not okay.”

“What? What do you mean?”

She stands. There is a huge throb inside her head, an echoing thunder of blood. “There’s,” she sighs. “I’m…”

Darkness rushes up around her like a long soft fall into deep water. Her muscles sag.

Hotch scrambles up into the ambulance and gets behind her, holds his hands under her head just as her knees buckle. Emily collapses, arms flopping like a rag doll’s and he drops down with her, guarding the back of her head. She hits the floor, one leg hanging over the edge, half on Hotch and half asprawl.

She shakes her head, her eyelids fluttering. She hums a little. A hand reaches up, touches Hotch’s elbow.

“What happened?” Her voice is thick and sleepy.

He looks at the emergency doors. His lips tighten. “I think you’re in a little shock, Emily.”

Her eyes snap open. “Where’s George?”

“Foyet’s in the hospital. I imagine he’s on his way to surgery.”

“He’s not dead?”

Hotch shakes his head. “No.”

“I passed out, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but only for a short moment.”

She sighs. Her eyebrows knot up. “My head hurts.” She rubs her forehead. “Did I hit it?”

A pair of nurses rush over with a wheelchair. One of them climbs up into the ambulance. He gathers up Emily’s shoulders.

He glances at Hotch. “Sir, we’ll take it from here.”

Hotch nods, holds his hands up. Despite her murmured protestations, the nurses maneuver Emily into a wheelchair.

Thunder mutters out over the water. Rain slants in on a strong wind, ticking on the sides of the ambulance.

They wheel her toward the emergency room and as he watches her go, one long white hand reaches up and curls in the rain, like she’s drowning.


	24. beep...beep...beep

A doctor comes into Emily’s curtained cubicle. He peels off the butterfly strips with great care, the cloth-backed adhesive pinched tight in sleek purple fingertips.

Emily presses her mouth shut and watches the second hand sweep around the face of the clock as his breath, laced with peppermint, lands soft and warm in her ear. The cold needle, packed full of numbness, pinches going in and he hisses in his breath along with her. He holds it out of sympathy. The steady gnawing ache melts away and she doesn’t feel the little needle darting in and out of her skin; every now and then she feels the tugging higher up, or lower down, as the doctor shifts his hands and his stitches pull the cut in her flesh closed.

Aaron sits with her, holds her hand. She squeezes his fingers. Her palm gets hot and sweaty. The doctor says there is no way to estimate how much blood she’s lost, and that he is worried about the possibility of shock. He bandages up her neck, tells her that he wants to keep her overnight for observation. He’s good at making eye contact, so earnest.

_We may need to take action._

So she nods.

Aaron helps her out of her soaked clothing. He unzips her, lets her lean against his body as he tugs against its wet embrace. Her jeans peel away like a stubborn rind. He gets on his knees to take off her flip-flops. A nurse brings in a gown and blankets to keep the shivering down and washcloths folded up beside a basin full of steaming water.

Emily lies in bed, exhaustion in her blood, circulating and pressing her down with each turn through her arteries and her veins, with each slow beat of her heart. The washcloth is rough and warm and the soap smells faintly of lilies and lavender, the breath of a summer field calming. Her skin tingles. The nurse picks up her limbs, sweeps up the rain and the piss and the clinging blood into the washcloth, wringing them out into the bowl. She dries Emily’s feet, rubs them with lotion. She works a pair of soft warm socks up over her toes.

She presses thick gummy plastic pads onto Emily’s chest and clips them to a bundle of wires. They translate the sound of her heart into beep beep beep, converts the syllables of its muscular impulses into green electronic cuneiform: racing peaks and manic valleys, sliding moraines, quivering trenches. It cracks time into tidal segments.

Her realizes her eyes are closed and thinks _when did that happen? _

The sheets shift warm and clean against her bare calves. She murmurs toward the movement in the room: Where’s George?

The nurse pulls the blanket up to her breastbone.

Is he dead?

I don’t know.

The TV is on and turned down low. Alex Trebek has the answer and they all clamor to ask the question. Emily wants to open her eyes but her eyelashes are too heavy.

Would you like some Jell-O?

Did I kill him?

I’ll find out.

_We’re going to hold her overnight for observation._

Emily opens her eyes.

The lights in her room are off. The hallway is dim, but she can see the shapes of the chairs where Reid and JJ left them, the chair where Hotch sat long after they left; she sees the blue weave of the upholstery, a scatter of pamphlets, an untouched tray of food.

Her heart goes beep…beep…beep…beep.

She looks up and counts the ceiling tiles: twenty-four and the one over the bed has been replaced with a painting of blue sky. Cumulus clouds, light and fluffy, the kind a child might imagine angels sitting on and playing harps, might see sleeping all curled up like baby birds inside their white wings.

An automated blood pressure cuff whirs to life, inhales the room’s stale air. It constricts around her upper arm. Faint orange streetlight falls in through the window, slants across the linoleum. The cuff hisses, holds tight, hisses and holds tight. Thick walls mute the thunder but lightning slashes into the sky, fills up the room. The air runs out of the cuff. The monitor makes a sound as it registers the reading.

Each flash lights up the small markerboard and chases the handwritten red letters proclaiming JANINE her nurse and RICK her aide, displays her blood pressure as it was at suppertime (too low), her body temperature (a degree below normal), her goals for the day (none).

A hospital is never dark.

_Overnight_.

There is a note on the bedside table. She reaches for it and picks it up, spreads it open with her fingertips. The paper trembles. The nurse has written in blue ink HE IS OKAY and HE’S THROUGH SURGERY and AARON CAME WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. Her arm is heavy, her muscles logy, so she lets her hand fall onto the bed.

Her eyes close.

Her heart goes beep-beep…beep-beep…beep-beep…beep-beep.

She imagines blood passed from hand to hand in a bag, dark red with iron and oxygen. JANINE hooks it to the port in the back of her hand and it’s cold as it merges with the river in her wrist.

_I slept through that part. _

Her eyes roll beneath her lids.

_Maybe it didn’t happen. Maybe it wasn’t real._

She thinks she must be sleeping, or at the very least waiting, in her brain’s antechamber impatient for full sleep to unroll its lush carpet. Her eyes are closed, but she still sees the room and the stutter-flashes of lightning, the white walls. The numbers on the clock are indistinct. The markerboard is wiped blank. She climbs out of her bed, feels the drag of IV tubing and turns her head to see blood. It hangs there, red and full, strange fruit. She reaches up, unhooks the bag from its stand and cradles it like a baby, like a milk-full breast.

She walks out into the hallway, carries it in her folded arms. She’s wearing a flowered sundress and sandals. Her hair is loose and dry, brushing against her shoulders. She smells like flowers. The sounds of seagulls drift down through the loudspeakers.

_I want to know what room he’s in. I would walk through the walls and count the stitches holding him together._

There are butterflies trapped in the walls. She hears them whispering.

She closes her eyes and imagines Aaron, sees him in the chair in his black suit and a blue tie sees him with her hand in his, limp and soft, and she thinks _do_ _you ever wish you were wrong about a profile?_

His voice comes back to her, weakened by distance and diluted by time. It touches the nape of her neck, draws itself in silk: _I wish it every day_.

She finds George’s room, enters. He is alone in the white cave. He has more wires and more monitors, more bags, yellow and clear and red.

Her own blood has gone to pomegranates. Thick and shiny, blushing, heavy with juice, she rips one open and the tart scent fills her nose, runs down the insides of her wrists. Ruby juice streaks her knees and splashes all over the floor tiles. She moves through puddles, imprinting purple tracks into the dirt on the floor.

He is asleep. His heart makes no sound.

The flesh of his face is relaxed, draped close to the bone. His consciousness drips all over his skin, runs in streaks, curls up in the lines of his face. Her fingers dig into the pale muscular rind, break through the tough white membranes to get at the scarlet seeds. Blood runs everywhere, drips thick off her fingers, smelling of flowers and sugar and burnt metal.

Food of the dead, she murmurs, sliding the seeds into her mouth. She bites down, floods herself with goosebumps. This is what you eat in hell.

She sees the bindings on his belly and moves forward, touches them, fingertips reverent. She strokes the weave. It rises and falls, becalmed on his breath. She leans over to touch his face with her reddened fingers. She presses a hand into his chest and his heart kicks strong and hard against her palm. She puts her mouth against the skin. The vibrating thud thud thud tickles the insides of her lips.

He reaches up, touches the bare skin over her spine. A firecracker of adrenaline bursts behind her breastbone and her breath skips and the brushing of his fingers feels like a match scraping up the inside of her; her face burns and her breath goes beep-beep-beep beep-beep-beep beep-beep-beep and her heart trembles as she thinks _oh my God, look at this, how everything is different, it’s all different._

Emily peels the tape. She lifts the bandages away and sees the cut she made in him, lays it bare; it’s lengthened by a scalpel, curving in a road to his ribs, a livid purple line stitched in place. With a shaking fingertip she traces the seam beneath the thread. Each heavy knot slows her progress.

The speed of his breath climbs; each stitch is a notch in a machine until her finger rests idle at the bottom and his lungs are revving.

Emily looks at him and lowers her face to his belly. His breath shakes, full of fresh heat, the pain holding it in tight. She touches her tongue to the bottom of the wound and George cups a hand around the back of her head. She glides up over the row of stitches, a ladder for her tongue to climb. She tastes iodine and sand and salt and bitter green leaves. There is pain and something else, something raw in the movement of his chest, scooping up the air; his throat transforms it into sound and she bites the stitch at the top, takes the severed edge in her teeth.

She pulls.

His flesh unravels. It falls open like a red blue-veined flower. There is little blood and what is there is thick and sticky, slow and dark. Emily works both hands inside. Her wrists twist, sink in up to the elbows. Steam curls around her arms, stinks of chrysanthemums and raw beef. His skin bulges where his organs shift. She closes her eyes.

She lifts her hands out, wet and red. She pulls out fistfuls of wet-winged butterflies. Her hands unfold. The butterflies twitch, lethargic on her gore-streaked palms. Emily holds them up to the light.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…beep. Beep-beep…beep-beep…beep-beep…beep-beep.

The wings flutter and their tiny hairlike legs stir; it’s like holding up a double handful of cherry blossoms into a spring breeze. They roll on her fingers, silky and animated, falling, fluttering to life, swarming in swirls, riding currents of air. Some of them land on her eyelashes. Some of them touch the borders of her mouth. Wings fan her chin, tickle her nostrils. Little legs brush her cheeks, crawl across her lips. Minuscule feet scatter ticklish goosebumps throughout her skin.

She squirms. Her nipples get hard.

Emily holds his wound together with slippery fingers and when she kisses its yellow edges he sighs, his body lifting, his spine arching.

Semen pulses against her breasts.

She imagines a butterfly landing on her clit. She feels its little legs struggling for purchase and she starts to come. The contractions unroll, spreading out. The waves in her blood race ahead of her short breaths.

The butterflies descend, fluttering across her back, crawling up her spine. They sip her sweat. Her body shudders and they lift off in a cloud, hovering with each peak and settling back down, rising and falling with each thrash of her hips.

Pomegranate seeds burst between her teeth. They taste like lightning.

A butterfly rides a teardrop as it glides down her face. George wipes it away, smearing pink powder and broken legs across her cheek.

This is what you eat in hell, she murmurs.

Emily wakes up.


	25. Hesitation Cut

Her fingers slide up the side of her neck, trace the bandage’s borders. She presses down on the gauze and winces at the dull flash of pain.

A voice whispers from the back of her mind:_ Hesitation cut_.

“Morning.”                          

Emily half-turns. “Hi.”

Aaron sits at the foot of the bed, a box of food balanced on his lap. “How are you feeling?”

She rolls onto her back and pushes a button set into the bedrail. The hydraulics at the head of the bed hum to life, push her up into a sitting position. “Better.”

“I brought you breakfast.” He smiles a little. “The team wanted to come but I said no. You need your rest.”

“I’m okay, I think. I had some weird dreams.”

He chuckles, opening the box. “I’m not surprised.” The room fills with the smell of bacon. “You’ve been sleeping for about twenty-four hours.”

“How’s Foyet?”

“Stable.” Aaron studies her face. “I have a couple of plain bagels here, some cottage eggs, and bacon.”

“I haven’t had cottage eggs in years!”

“Well,” he says, his smile widening, “you’ve having them now. How much?”

Emily sits up and watches him scoop them onto a plate. “That’s…okay, that’s good. I’m starving. Did they wake me up to eat?”

“The nurse kept trying.” Aaron stands long enough to pass her a plate. “But every time she woke you you’d just ask her if Foyet was dead. She’d go to find out, and by the time she got back you’d be asleep again.” He glances at her. “The doctor asked me if you’ve been working especially long hours lately.” He spreads cream cheese onto a bagel. “He thinks you might’ve been sleep deprived to the point of exhaustion in addition to the blood loss.”

Emily laughs, digging into the eggs. “Did you tell him I was on vacation?”

Aaron nods. He keeps his eyes on her face. “Yes.”

“I’ve had plenty of sleep.” She takes a bite. “All I’ve done is sleep. You know, when I was a kid I used to think that these were cottage eggs because we only ate them here. At the cottage.” She grins a little and rolls her eyes, holding up a forkful. “But nope. It’s the cottage cheese.” She chuckles. “Kids are funny.”

“Em.” He looks into her eyes. “You know I have to ask you what happened.”

Her eyes drop to the plate. “This is a conflict of interest for you.”

“Off the record.” His voice softens. “What happened?”

“What do you think happened?” Emily stirs her eggs. “I was alone out there, in the rain, and then I wasn’t.” She pulls in a slow breath. “There was a knife on my neck. I said a lot of things.” She pushes the plate aside and looks up at him, face tilted, watching him from beneath her lashes. “I don’t remember all of them. The things I said. He hesitated.” The corners of her mouth tighten. She turns and looks out the window, at the gorgeous blue sky filling up the panes. “Hesitation cut.” The sunlight is bright inside the pale room. She shakes her head. “Not like him.”

“No. It doesn’t fit the profile.”

“Stop handling me, Aaron.” She lets out a sharp breath. “I know that’s what you’re doing.”

“I’m sorry. Do you have any idea what he was doing there?”

She looks at him and the longer he looks into her eyes, the more her face relaxes. “No.”

“I know he spent summers here growing up.”

“Yeah…so?” She picks up a clump of eggs with her fingers and eats it. “I spent a few myself.”

He sits back. “You don’t think that’s interesting?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“The case,” he says. “That story left at the scene. _A Rose for Emily_. You don’t find that…strange? Coincidental?”

“It doesn’t fit the profile.” She sucks cottage cheese off her fingers. “It doesn’t even come within shouting distance of the profile. Look at those bodies. Look at those wounds. There are no defensive marks at all. Those women had to be sedated, maybe even unconscious to be killed that way, in such a…calm and orderly manner.” She looks at him. “So there’s no sadism, no terrorizing them, no feeding off the fear.” She taps her index finger. “There’s no Eye of Providence.” She taps her middle finger. “There’s no chain of evidence, no trophies linking one scene to the next.” She taps the tip of her ring finger. “There’s no contact with the police. It took months for these murders to even be linked to one another. It would be a huge deviation in signature. Does that sound like the Boston Reaper to you?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “He shouldn’t have let his guard down enough for you to get control of the knife. He should’ve killed you.” He takes a bite of his bagel. “But he didn’t.”

“The hesitation cut.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand it either.”

“Do you have any reason to think he followed you here?”

“Can I have the other bagel?”

“Sure.” Aaron puts the halves together like a sandwich and picks it up. “Do you want cream cheese?”

“Um…yes. Please.”

“A lot or a little?”

“Somewhere in between. Would you mind opening the window?” She holds up the call button. “Or, I could get an aide to do it.”

“No, no…”

He gets up and carries the bagel and the cream cheese to the bed. He hands them to her, then crosses the room and opens the window. A warm breeze moves into the room, smelling of wet grass and salt. The sound of chirping birds filters in.

“It’s a beautiful day out,” he says.

Emily smears cream cheese onto the bagel and presses the halves together. She takes a bite. “I don’t know why he would be here.” She wipes her mouth. “It’s not the brightest move he’s ever made. It’s an island, hello. Not so easy to get on and off.”

“You think he wanted to be caught?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice goes somewhere deep. “That’s a thought, isn’t it?”

“Your point is a valid one.” He watches her as he takes a bite of bacon. “It is an island. Especially with the FBI here, it’s a ready-made trap.”

“I don’t know.” Her head moves like she wants to shake it. “That doesn’t seem…that doesn’t feel…” She sighs and looks at her food. “I don’t know.”

“You can’t guess?”

She looks at the bagel and tosses it onto her plate. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you want any bacon?”

She shakes her head. “No. Thanks.”

Aaron wipes his fingers on a napkin. “I think they’ll probably discharge you later today.”

“Maybe.” She glances at the window. “I hope so. I do feel a lot better.”

He opens a small carton of orange juice and sighs through his nose. “You’re off the case.”

“What?” Her eyes widen. “Why?”

He fidgets and glances away from her face. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay here. You need rest.” He looks at her. “You need to be away from Nantucket.”

Her mouth opens. For a moment she can’t speak. “Aaron, I am fine. I’m _fine_.” Her expression hovers close to the edge of a fragile vulnerability. “I’m fine, it’s just a little blood loss. I am all right. If the doctors are ready to let me go, if I am stable enough to go, then I can stay here. I can work. You know and I know that you need as many pairs of eyes and hands as you can get.”

He shakes his head. “Emily, I’m sorry. The answer is no.”

“Well, you can take me off the case.” Her tone sharpens. “And you can suspend me if you want to, but you can’t make me leave.”

“You need to get off this island.” He stands up and hands her the orange juice. “You need to be at home.”

“You need to stop telling me what to do. You need to stop telling me what’s best for me. I’m fine.” She takes a sip and watches him. “You can’t make me leave.”

“If you don’t do as I ask, I’ll have to suspend you. I don’t want to do that.”

“Oh really, and how will you write that one up?” Emily snorts. “Agent is suspended from duty because, in her time _off the clock_, she refused to go home? If I stay out of your way I’m not obstructing anything.” She takes a long drink of orange juice. “Call it…I don’t know, moral support. I’ll rub your feet. I’ll liaise with the takeout joints. I’ll stand in the background and go rah rah rah.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

She looks into his eyes. “I don’t care.”

“Look…” He sighs. “I don’t want to fight with you about this.”

“Then don’t.” She crumples up her napkin and tosses it into the wastebasket. “Easy enough.”

“I don’t want to ask you this, but I have to.” Aaron sighs and rubs at his face with the heels of his hands.  “Is…is there something going on here? Something I don’t know about?” He looks at her. “Is there something going on between you and Foyet?”

“Why the hell would you ask me that? Are you…are you fucking serious?”

“You keep asking about him.” He glances away from her. “You did it a lot when you were sleeping. That feels strange to me.”

“I don’t want him dead. I never wanted him dead. You can’t prosecute a dead man.”

“He tried to kill you.”

“Yes!”

He studies her face. “What were you doing out there?”

“Something happened to me there when I was a teenager and I’m not going to talk about it, because it’s none of your business, so don’t push me. I was…alone, and I couldn’t sleep, so I felt like taking a drive out there.” Emily sits cross-legged and holds her elbows. “The cottage there is empty. There’s a path that goes through the trees and down to the beach. It’s quiet. It’s empty. I wanted quiet.”

“So you drive out there in the middle of the night when it’s raining.” His eyebrows go up. “To get some quiet.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes narrow. “What’s it to you?”

“And there’s George Foyet with his knife.” He watches her without expression. “How did it happen? Did he come up behind you?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what happened.” She hooks her hair behind her ears. “I was on my knees and he came up behind me.”

“Why were you on your knees?”

“I saw something on the ground.” She glances toward the window. “I knelt to pick it up.”

“What was it?”

“It was a gold candy wrapper.” She looks at him, swallows. “I thought maybe it was a piece of jewelry or something.”

Aaron nods. “What did he say?”

Emily closes her mouth. She stares at him for a moment, then looks at the blankets in her lap with high patches of color blooming in her cheeks. She breathes hard through her nose. “He didn’t say anything.”

“He didn’t say anything.”

“No.” She looks at him. Her jaw clenches. “Until he said he wanted to kill me.”

“He said it just like that. He said, ‘I want to kill you.’”

“Yes!”

“He didn’t say ‘I’m going to kill you.’ You’re sure.” Aaron leans forward. “He actually used the word _want_.”

“Yes.” Emily glares. “I’m sure. He used the word _want_.”

“And yet,” says Aaron, voice softening. “He couldn’t do it.”

“What do y—“

He looks into her eyes: “Hesitation cut.”

She recoils. “Get out.”

“Emily…”

“No. No. You get the hell out of here.” She plucks a tissue out of the bedside box. “You’re not going to interrogate me. I’m not going to let you. If you want that, then you send another team in here, and you get a formal statement,” she snaps. “You do it right.”

“Please, Emily.” He closes his eyes, lets out a long sigh. “Just tell me what happened. This doesn’t have to be on the record.”

“I already told you what happened.”

He looks at her. “Do you want to see him?”


	26. Kiss Me, Emily

The look on her face holds still. She takes a gulping breath and turns her face away, wipes her nose. She soaks up her tears with a tissue. Her voice turns husky. “Why would I want to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “Maybe so you’ll see that he isn’t dead. Why don’t you tell me?”

She looks at him. “I shouldn’t let you do this to me.”

Aaron walks to an empty wheelchair. He loosens the brakes, pulls it back from the wall.

Emily blows her nose. She wipes her eyes with her fingers. “If I tell you no, are you going to push it?”

He pauses, shakes his head. His face is remote and hard to read. “No.”

“All right.” She tosses the tissue into the wastebasket. “Let me brush my hair. Do I have a brush?”

“Don’t you have one in your purse?”

She nods.

He opens the plain wooden cabinet. He pulls out her floppy cloth bag and snaps it open. He paws through it, finds a small brush, tosses it to her. Emily picks it up, pulls it through her hair. She gropes her way through the tangles. The scrape of soft bristles loud in her ears. Aaron finds a covered elastic, hands it to her. She takes it, gathers up her hair, twists it into the elastic’s loop. She pulls until it’s tight. She uses a tissue to clean up her face.

“I see they’ve taken your IV out.”

Emily glances at her bandaged hand. “Yeah. I’m off the telemetry too.” She looks up at him. “I guess I’m all right.”

He rolls the wheelchair up alongside the bed. “Do you need help?”

“No.” She pushes her sheets aside, swings her legs over the edge. “I probably don’t need the ride. I could walk.”

“Here.” He takes a folded blanket out of the cabinet. “To cover your legs.”

Emily stands up, winces at the cold floor. She turns and settles her ass into the vinyl seat. She opens the blanket, spreads it over her lap. She tucks the edges underneath her hips. Aaron circles around and drops onto one knee, folds the blanket around her feet.

“I think this will work,” he says. “If not, then…I don’t know.”

Emily puts her hands on her lap. “It will be fine. I’ll just pull it up if it comes loose. Are you sure about doing this?”

He stands and walks around in back of the chair. His hands curl around the handles. “I’m sure.”

She sighs. “Okay, then.”

He steers her out into the hallway. It’s bright, windows set at either end and the blinds slanted just enough to allow a flood of sunlight. The walls hold framed photographs of rose-covered cottages, fog-shrouded seascapes, still-lifes of shells and starfish and abandoned piers. The color scheme is warm and pastel, ivory and gold. Emily hears beeping as she passes different rooms, an old man coughing, the soft pleasant tone of a call bell. They wheel past the nurse’s station. The nurses nod.

“The nurses know where you’re taking me,” she says.

Aaron nods. “Yes.”

She turns her head, leans back to look at him. “You knew you were going to do this.”

He pushes her to the elevator. He leans over, presses the arrow pointing up. “Yeah.”

“This is where I should tell you to turn this fucking chair around.”

The doors slide open. “But you won’t.”

“What are you thinking about right now?”

He rolls her inside. “I’m not thinking.” He presses a button. “I’m following an instinct.”

The doors trundle closed. Emily feels the gears engage, the slight drop in her stomach as the elevator begins to rise. “Well. When you put it that way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her voice is kind. “What exactly do you think is going on here, Aaron?”

The elevator stops. The doors open and he steps backwards, pulling her out and into a cool green hallway. This one has pictures of leaves, color illustrations like something found in an old-fashioned journal of botany.

“I think you’re lying to me.” Aaron backs her out of the elevator. “I don’t know where. I can’t separate the lies from the truth.” He turns her around, walks. The wheels turn. “It all sounds the same.”

At the end of the hallway are police, two of them, sitting on either side of an open door in visitors’ chairs. Both of them look old, toughened up by the work. They’re drinking coffee out of fancy paper cups. At sight of Aaron, they straighten up. One of them nods.

“Agent Hotchner.”

Aaron stops. “Any change?”

“Not that I can see.”

Emily leans over her lap, tries to peer around the doorframe.

“He awake?”

“Yeah.” Thick Boston accent. “He’s not talking, though.”

The beep emanating from George’s room is slow and steady. Emily closes her eyes, listens for the sound of his breath.

“All right.”

The two cops scoot their chairs aside. Aaron pulls back a little, reorients the chair, and steers her between them.

Emily rolls into a room where the shades are drawn. She raises her voice. “Why hasn’t anyone opened the window?”

The burlier of the two cops peers around the doorframe. “No one asked?”

She looks over her shoulder. “Well, I’m asking.”

Aaron presses his lips together. He leaves her chair in the center of the room, walks to the window, opens the blinds. He tugs them up, pushes on the sash just enough to let in a breath of outside air.

Emily grips the rings on the wheels, rolls herself forward. The damp breeze moves along the side her face, smelling of wet pavement and new roses.

George’s head turns on the pillow. The beeps speed up just a touch. She watches his gaze pull into focus, feels it sharpen against the lines of her face. Her breath changes. There’s a faint clink. Emily glances at the cuff connecting him to the bedrail. His fingers curl. She turns her chin toward the window, keeps her eyes on George’s face.

She raises her voice. “Are you getting what you want?”

Behind her, quiet and beside the window: “Yes.”

“Why don’t you tell me what to do.”

George looks into her eyes. She feels the skin of her mouth redden, the insides of her lips lifting apart.

“I’ll do it.”

“It’s not all about you, Emily.”

A corner of George’s mouth turns up. He keeps his eyes on hers. “I’m flattered.”

Emily glances at his wrist.

Aaron’s voice slides down into a soft growl. “Why couldn’t you do it?”

George watches Emily’s mouth. “What are you doing here, Agent Hotchner?”

“There’s a case.”

George repositions his head. His eyes roam up over Emily’s face. “Shouldn’t you be doing your job?”

“This is my job.”

A small smile flashes across his mouth. His attention stretches out inside her gaze and his voice deepens, hits gravel. “You really get paid those big big bucks of yours to come into a hospital room and watch two people look at each other?”

“When one of those people is you?” Aaron circles around to the other side of the bed, puts his hands on the bedrail. “Yes.”

“So…tell me.” George’s little smile turns lazy. “Whaddaya see?”

“He sees a closed loop,” Emily says. “He can’t see inside it so he’s projecting what he wants to see on the outside, even though he’s trying not to. He’s projecting because it’s the only thing you can do with a closed loop.” She watches George’s mouth. “The mind abhors a vacuum.”

“What I see is making me curious,” says Aaron, his voice hard-edged and warm. “I know why Emily’s looking at you, George, but what I can’t figure out is why you’re looking at her. Are you thinking about stabbing her? Are you thinking about watching her bleed? Are you laying there right now and looking into her face, wondering how you did such a shit job of killing her?” Aaron steps behind Emily’s wheelchair. “I mean, she’s right here, in a wheelchair, looking into your eyes and less than an arm’s reach away. All that soft white flesh under her hospital gown, just begging for a knife. Look at her breath.” He moves his palms over her shoulders. “I can’t begin to imagine how frustrating that must be for you.”

The words slide off George’s expression. He crawls into Emily’s gaze, half-whispering, the look in his eyes stroking the underside of her skin. “Kiss me, Emily.”

Her whole body twitches.

“Pretty pathetic, George.” Aaron’s hands close on her upper arms. “Even for you.”

He holds her eyes like a crocodile. His upper arms twitch. The cuffs clink against the bedrails. She takes in a quick breath and looks at his hands and the tension in his forearms, the tendons popping on the undersides of his wrists. His ribs rise and fall.

Emily looks at his face. Her eyes move into his and the swamp image melts from her mind. She sees stillness, flickers of hunger, a dark restless current of vulnerability; she sees him trapped inside his body and trembling up close to the surface, yearning to pass the boundaries of skin.

She moves and Aaron’s fingers tighten. A flash of pain drops her back in her seat.

Emily reaches back and pushes at his wrists, twists them. She rises to her feet, her bones unsteady.

George’s gaze rises on the momentum of her body. She shifts forward and the smooth turns of her joints slide beneath his face, shape the muscle into a raw and naked expression. Emily touches his face. She grounds herself in the roots of his hair, the texture of his skin. His mouth trembles open on a blast of breath. She traces its shape with a light thumb. He licks her nail. She slides her nose up against his and his face slackens, eyelids drifting shut. He lifts his chin. She cradles the side of his face.

The edges in Aaron’s voice break. “Emily.”

Her mouth drops into a slow kiss. She inhales his ragged breath, engulfs his lips. The handcuff chains snap taut. George makes a sound, the boundaries of his voice smothered by the richness of flesh. Emily caresses his throat.

“Emily, that’s…that’s…” The strength drains out of Aaron’s voice. He reaches out, knuckles brushing the back of her head. “That’s enough.” He tightens his hand around the base of her ponytail. “Enough.”

Emily brushes her swollen lips against George’s. Their panting breaths mingle.

Aaron twists her hair. “Enough!”

Emily straightens up. She turns and looks at Aaron, her eyes dark as broken stone and bruised like flowers beaten by a hard rain.

“He can’t do anything,” she whispers. “He’s restrained.”

Aaron looks past her and a smirk spreads over George’s face. He meets Aaron’s eyes and the smirk splits into something lazy and sharklike.

Emily puts a hand on Aaron’s chest.

His eyes snap away from George. He breathes like a man in a race.

“Don’t,” she murmurs, her eyes on the throbbing pulse in his neck. “I can see it in your face.” She looks up at him. “Don’t.”

“Hey…Aaron.” George shifts on the bed. His voice turns confidential. “Do her in the ass. She loves it.”

Aaron’s hands ball into tight pale fists. His muscles get hard, start to shake. Emily pushes the heel of her palm into his breastbone. She glances up.

His face is full of cracked fury.

George chuckles. “Do it for me, will you?”

Aaron takes a deep breath. He puts a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Sit.”

“Aaron. Don’t give him what he wants.”

“Sit down.”

Emily picks up her blanket off the floor. She wraps it around herself and ducks her head and moves around Aaron, heading for the door. He grabs her by the arm.

“No.” She looks at his face. “No.”

Aaron’s hand tightens.

“Let go of me.”

“You know, I don’t think she likes that, Aaron.”

He glares at George. “Shut up.”

His eyebrows lift. “Are you gonna make me?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, you want to. I know you do. It’d be easy. Come over here, pinch my nose and cover up my mouth and watch me die. No great loss, right?” A corner of his mouth curls into a smile. “Just like putting down a mad dog. Right?”

“Aaron.” Emily speaks through clenched teeth. “Walk away. Now.”

“I don’t think so.” His voice is calm. “Not this time.”

“You…” Her voice drops into an intense whisper. “You don’t want to engage with him. You’ll lose.” She stares at him. “You don’t want to do this.”

Aaron looks at her and something comes loose in his face, swept up by the hard currents of his rage. “Neither did you.”

Emily yanks her arm out of his hand and the blanket falls to the floor. She pushes past him, trips a little, and storms out into the hallway. She reaches back, holds her gown closed.

The two cops look surprised.

“You watch him,” she spits out, throat tight with tears. She points at the doorway. “You watch him because right now he’s dangerous.”

“O-Okay.”

They exchange glances.

“Yes ma’am.”

“I’m serious!”

The older of the two puts on a placating tone. “I know you are, ma’am.”

Emily strides down the hall to the elevator. She runs through the closing doors, leans against the wall, cries.

The doors ding open and she stumbles back into her own room. She wipes her face, hauls her clothes out of the cabinet. She starts to get dressed.


	27. The Persistence Of Memory

“Higher,” she whispers.

_The J. Crew hair is soft and restless beneath her fingers. She’s lying on the beach with her shorts off, up near the dune grass. Marooned in the small hours of the morning and the guy from the alley is between her legs, half on the blanket and half off, this is John from Siasconset, living on a corner of the island too rich even for her coddled blood. His body, his lean muscularity, makes her think of lacrosse games and homemade lemonade and grass stains on white sneakers. He’s tanned and smooth. His soft pink tongue is buried in her cunt. It’s hesitant, blind, but with a nudge from her hand and a murmured word it finds its way to where she needs it to go. _

_She’s a little bit drunk, all the connections in her mind loosened. It’s a clear night and the stars fill the sky like a Technicolor plate of the universe. The Milky Way and smudges of galaxies burn crazy bright against the velvet black of space. She is adrift on the sounds of the waves and wind and shifting sand. Her eyes close. Stars swim through the darkness behind her closed lids. She feels like a part of the earth, her bones heavy, the two of them joined at the skin. _

_He licks her slow and steady, his hands hot on the insides of her thighs. She hums, breath singing its approval in her throat, and she’s not thinking of girls or boys or Francesca, or the smell of the ocean, or even her own fingers; she’s thinking about the stars, her steady climb up through the soft air, into them on the tongue of this strange boy. He doesn’t want anything else from her. He holds her hand because he thinks he has to, that she won’t come without it. Her breath crests. She craves the clutch of his fingers, squeezes them as she brushes up against the threshold, falls over into a deep trench full of throbbing. She gasps and lifts her hips into his face. He moans for her._

_He comes up and looks at her face as the last of the spasms melt away. She pants and he smiles and she notices his slight overbite, the way one front tooth tilts just slightly off-center._

_“Not bad,” she breathes._

_He turns over and opens his jeans. “Watch me.”_

_She flushes and rolls onto her elbow. “Why?”_

_He pulls his shirt up so his cock can rest on his lean stomach. “Because it’s hot.”_

_Her cheeks get warm. Embarrassment fidgets through her veins. She watches him from beneath her lashes. “I’ve never watched a guy do it before.”_

_He grips the base of his cock, squeezes it, and starts to stroke. His fist twists a little when it reaches the head. She imagines the sensation of touching it, the heat of its hard core and the softness of the skin, the pulsing of the restless blood trapped inside. His eyebrows dig a furrow into his smooth forehead. “I’ve never watched a girl do it,” he breathes. “I want to watch you.”_

_The thought makes her whole body burn. She takes hold of his free hand and watches the tension build in his stomach. “Okay.”_

_He holds his bottom lip tight in his teeth. His breath deepens before it shortens. He makes soft breathy noises that twist around inside her cunt. He arches his neck. His face breaks in the starlight, muscles tightening around his features, rearranging them into something both fierce and beautiful. _

_He moans. _

_When the jizz comes out it’s pearly, arcing over his skin like fish glossed in moonlight. Some of it lands on his shirt but most of it gleams on the rapid rise and fall of his navel. Emily reaches out, slides a fingertip through it. She puts her finger in her mouth. She looks at this face._

_He holds her eyes and looking back at him, his flayed expression and the intensity of locked gazes, turns her on. She slides her other hand down to her cunt. New wetness wells up hot through the old. He turns onto his side and watches her face, studies it as her breath comes faster and sharper. He watches her pupils dilate. She gets closer, her hips undulating against the dexterity of her fingers, and he crawls down and pushes her thighs apart. He rests his head on the inside of one of them, watching the way her wrist curves, her rapid fingers moving in disorganized circles. _

_He separates her hairy lips, holds them open. _

_“I see your meat,” he murmurs, sliding a finger into her hole. “You’re so raw inside. Did you know that?” He turns his face, kisses a trembling muscle. “Did you know it before I told you?”_

_She stiffens up, comes with a sudden strangled noise. He leans his head into her thigh and slips another finger inside, feeling the swift strength of her spasms. His hot breath stirs in her pubic hair. Emily shivers and touches his hair, combs her fingers through its thickness. It’s so soft._

_She thinks of his tooth. “How come you didn’t have braces?”_

_He looks up at her. “What?”_

_“I noticed your front tooth. It’s crooked.”_

_He moves onto his back long enough to zip up his pants. “I didn’t want any.”_

_“You’ll change your mind when you’re older,” she says. “That’s what my parents say.”_

_He’s quiet._

_Emily looks at the sky. Inside his silence she feels awkward and too small for her skin. She listens to him move around on the blanket. His body heat touches her before he does. He slides an arm beneath her neck, wraps it around her shoulders, and she allows him to pull her to him. The sky streaks across her vision until she sees dark and glittering water, the foot-pocked sand. She rests her face on his hard shoulder. Her blood is unsettled by his closeness. She closes her eyes and listens to the breath caught in his flesh, trapped in his bones, the echo of it so different from hers._

_“I think about weird shit when I come.” She feels the words, caught once in his skin and breathed once into her hair. “Like…sometimes I see needles going in skin. Sometimes there are guts, like organs, what you see on an anatomy chart. It’s weird.”_

_A sunburst of recognition scorches her, burns away her breath._

_“Tonight, just now, it was nylons. You know…stockings? Dirty ones. Bloody ones all tangled up on a floor somewhere.” He lets out a skittery little chuckle. “I’m weird.”_

_Emily thinks of Francesca and imagines the cut, the little nibbling fish swimming up to it, slithering inside; it makes her wet. Sometimes that’s all it takes. _

_“That’s okay,” she says, putting her hand over his heart. It’s strong. “Me too. Me too.”_

Emily opens her purse, digging around inside it for her credentials. Her breath comes in rapid little puffs. She pulls the little leather folder out and opens it, looks into a miniature version of her face. The photo stares up at her through the laminate. She presses her lips together, flings it onto the bed.

The sudden strength of her memory weakens her and she sinks into a chair. She puts her face in her hands, her elbows propped on her knees. Tears drip wet and hot all over the insides of her wrists. She sniffles and pulls in a deep shuddering breath. She wipes her nose.

_Then…kissing. There had been no kissing up until the moment I thought of Francesca and wanted so badly to tell him, ached to do it, but I was too afraid. He waited a handful of seconds and pulled back enough to look at me and asked if he could kiss me. _

_He said he wanted to. _

_He was so far ahead of his time, asking me for everything, making me wait, pulling me down into complete awareness of the moment by making me hear the words: I want to eat you out. I want to kiss you. May I make you come? May I French kiss you? I want to._

_And me, quivering in all this awareness, with this sudden agency. My loins hummed like plucked strings. By the time he wanted it was desperate to give it to him, so willing to open myself, to drown. He pushed me onto my back and kissed me until the moments stretched apart and I fell through them. He asked me to show him my breasts. I arched my back and took off my shirt. I flung my bra onto the sand. Air on them, a cool breeze drifting in from the sea, made me squirm. He asked to touch them and my nerve endings yielded to his hands. He brought his face close to his hands, watched his fingers at work. He whispered that he wanted to put his mouth on my nipples._

_By then I was begging. He licked me, he sucked me and I used my words: please, fuck me. Please. The words flooding me, filling me with restlessness and new hunger. A hollowness opened up in me. It was a hunger that roared. _

_Put it in. Your cock, put it in me. Oh fuck. I’m on the pill. It’s okay. _

_All I could think of was the hot thick slide of cock, pushing in, filling the throat of my newborn hunger. Choking it. Killing it. Please do it, I said, moaning his name. I sharpened it with my lungs, flung it like a hook into the sky. I trembled, I scrounged up my guts and pushed them into my voice: Fuck me! Please! _

_I like it when girls scream, he panted. Will you scream for me?_

Emily steps into her flip-flops. She looks at the credentials on her rumpled bed, reaches out and picks them up. She pulls a tissue out of the box and blows her nose. She shoulders her purse, walks out of the room, strides down the hallway.

She expects someone to stop her. She waits for a voice, for the sounding of an alarm. No one does.

The sun is blinding. It’s warm, the air buffeted about by the sea. The sun on her skin is almost enough to make her burst into fresh tears.

She takes a shuttle to Surfside Beach.

So early in the day, and this early in the season, the broad swath of pale sand is empty. The wind barrels in off the water and ruffles her ponytail, its cold edge carving a chill blush into her cheeks. She walks close to the ledge of dune grass. Brittle strands of sun-blackened seaweed and pale shards of shell crunch beneath her feet. She hikes over the shifting sand and it’s fine, crumbly with moisture, still cool from the night before. She walks toward a gentle curve in the horizon.

Emily pauses, turning toward the sea. The wind blasts her full in the face. The water gleams underneath the fierce morning sun, blue and green and variegated as the inside of an abalone shell. She squints, shades her eyes with the flat of one hand. The sun’s warmth is tentative on her wrist. White sails skim the hard dark line of the horizon, out where the sandy bottom drops off into ruthless depths.

They look antiseptic, like bleached fangs.

_It’s just so fucking picturesque._

Emily puts her back to the dunes and sits down. The beauty, the simplicity of it, lulls her against her will. Seagulls screech overhead. Their thin shadows race through the hills and valleys carved into the sand, zigzag toward the water.

The sun lands on her jeans. The denim soaks up the heat and the skin beneath starts to get warm. It’s a dark blue, a mottled color like the midnight sky.

She looks at her thighs and sees bloodstains on them like clouds. The ghost of George’s blood tucks into thin wrinkles, leaves its smeared orange kiss on the faded seams of her fly.

She lays down on the sand. She curls up with her back toward the water. Her eyes sting.

_The sweatshirt, light blue, soaked through. A dead loss. _She wants it. She wishes she had it for a pillow, a thin cushion between her cheek and sharp bits of shell, between her nostrils and the tidal stink of the sand. She wants to bury her head in it and hide from the rest of the world, wants only waves and seagulls echoing in her ears.

Her t-shirt is black, scoop-necked. She pulls the thin cotton away her belly and rubs it between her fingers. She touches the stains and thinks of the stain and all those clinging proteins, a secret only Luminol can tell.

Parts of her break off and start to crumble. She feels them slide down with her tears.

She cries for a long time. She watches the tiny shadow of an upturned shell creep around its chipped edge, held hostage by the persistence of memory.


	28. The Fine Nantucket Sand

The first time her phone rings, she sits up and looks at it. Sand falls off her cheek as she watches it light up. She watches it ring until Aaron hangs up.

The second time it starts to vibrate, she doesn’t bother to look at the screen. She gets up from her place on the sand and holds it, walks down the gentle slope, down to where the tide has gone all the way out from the land and left gleaming gold flats of water-smoothed sand. She walks into the water, still wearing her rubber flip-flops, soaking the legs of her jeans up past the knee. White-crested waves roll up onto the long flat bottom and break around her thighs.

The third time it rings, she flings it out into the water. She watches it fly, blinking metal and glass in the sun, turning over and over in an arc, out past the breakers.

The sight of it pulls something out of her. In the hollow place left behind, she feels clean.

_And when you come out, you’re never the same again._

Emily turns her back on the sea. She walks out of the water, cutting into it with her ankles, splashing foam into her face. She climbs up the beach to her little depression in the sand, a curled bowl made by her shoulders and her churning feet. She takes her purse off her shoulder. She squats down and drops it on the sand, pulls it open, moves her hand around inside. She weighs its contents in her palm, feels the shape of each thing before she pushes it aside. At the bottom, her fingertips brush smooth leather.

Emily pulls out her credentials. She looks at them for a moment, drops them on the sand. Leaning forward, she curls her hand into a cup and pushes a small hill of the fine Nantucket sand over the blue letters. The grains strike the laminate and makes her think of the sound maple candy makes when she crunches it between her teeth. The sand is full of the day’s heat. It feels pleasant on her skin, safe and peaceful, the heat soaking into her knuckles and making them loose. It’s a calming sensation, woven of a thousand childhood memories.

She kneels and looks at the sand, the sunlight glittering off it, and thinks about Padre Island: _I know you can get in your car and drive the whole length of the beach, dodging rattlesnakes and tarantulas, and the seagulls are wild enough to swoop down and bite the French fry out of your mouth. _

Wind tousles her hair.

_I know you can go down there on Spring Break and tie on a little wildness, do some drinking, make some bad decisions._ She stands, brushing caked sand off her knees. She bends to pick up her purse. _But most of the time, they don’t follow you all the way home_.

She thinks about crying, folds her hands around each other and wishes for a tear or two. She wants them sliding across her skin, falling off her nose, dripping onto the sand; all of her sorrow riding them back to Mother Ocean.

_No, _says a voice deep in her mind._ Crying’s done._

Her stomach rumbles. She turns and looks down into her purse, puts her hand inside. She wants to check the time but remembers that her phone is shifting around on the sandy bottom of the Atlantic. She sighs and looks around, trying to remember where the snack bar is.

She sets off, heading back toward the bus stop, veering through the brisk wind and down close to the water. She takes off her flip-flops, carrying them hooked over her fingers. The firm wet sand chills the bones in her feet. She looks ahead and sees a family’s territory staked out in blankets, a pair of kids running pell-mell for the water, their father striding behind. An umbrella shades the mother as she wrestles with a coffin-sized cooler.

The sight blows into her hunger, freshens it. She closes her eyes for a moment, and stands still and thinks about fried shrimp in a red and white paper basket: crinkle cut fries, Coke on ice, pale spots of grease glimmering in waxed paper.

_How long a walk to Siasconset?_

She buys a slice of pizza at the snack bar and sits down on a bench to eat it. When she’s done she wipes off her fingers and goes up to the window, asking for another one, her stomach growling and oblivious to everything but its own desire for food. The bus pulls up, idles as a handful of people climb down the stairs and step onto the sandy sidewalk. She pays for the pizza and folds the slice before taking a big bite, grease sizzling hot on the roof of her mouth. She buys a Coke and carries her food up the road and away from the beach.

She starts to cry and ignores the tears. They run down her face. The street and the dunes and the cars turn blurry, splitting into ghost images.

Emily wolfs down the pizza. She takes a swig of Coke and wipes her eyes and runs back to catch the bus. She climbs on, into air-conditioning and the crosswinds from open windows. The inside it smells like suntan lotion and ice cream and diesel fumes. She takes a seat beside the door, watching the dune grass as it ripples in the wind, bending in bright green waves toward Nantucket Town. The sheen on the undersides of the blades shines bright gold in the sun. She turns around and watches the retreat of the sea through the back windshield, harsh and dark and too bright to look at, stretching rugged blue from horizon to horizon.

In town, she finds a payphone near the bus stop. She picks up the handset, puts her drink on the ground, and dials Aaron’s number.

The bus rumbles to life. Sun warms her back as she puts the phone to her ear and glances around at the cobbled street with its brick sidewalks and the day trippers walking in their sandals and Bermuda shorts, the plastic bags with bright logos swinging from their wrists. There is music made indistinct by a cacophony of engines and human voices. Lacy shade cast by overhead branches shifts across the cobblestones with the wind.

“Hotchner.”

“Aaron.” Her stomach quails. Emily takes a deep breath. “Do you love me?”

“Emily?” She hears him sitting up straight, all of his attention funneling into the receiver. He turns gruff. “Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach—“

Her eyes close. “Can you just answer the question?”

He pauses. “Where are you?”

“You know I’m still on Nantucket, you can read the area code.” She turns around, puts her back against the keypad and scans the faces. Tourists crisscross a street full of crawling cars. Layers of noise slide and bump into one another. The wind changes direction and brings with it a smell of fried seafood. “Now for fuck’s sake can you answer the question? Do you love me or not?”

He clears his throat. “Yes.”

“Can you listen? Can you sit still and listen to me without having Garcia trace the number?” She huddles close to the wall. Her eyes crawl the crowds. “Without sending the cavalry out here after me?”

“I can do that.”

“Yeah, you can…but will you? Where are you? What are _you_ doing right now? Are you lying to me?”

“I was looking for you.”

“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m fine.”

“You gave your nurses quite the scare. Your doctors are very concerned.” He keeps his voice calm. “How are you feeling?”

“You think I’m crazy. You think I’ve lost my mind.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m fine. Look, I know you don’t understand and don’t try and give me some line about how you do because you don’t. You _don’t_. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I hear you, Emily.”

“There’s no Stockholm here.” She starts to cry. “I hear you thinking it and I even hear you dismissing me and that’s fine, you know, that’s your right and your inclination as a professional. I’m sure you want to believe it, too.” She sniffs. “You don’t know me.”

“And Foyet does.”

“I hate that tone, I fucking hate it, that’s the my-ears-are-working-fine-but-my-brain-is-closed-for-business tone of voice, and there’s no room for that here.” She wipes her nose. “There’s no room for that in this discussion. You’re either going to listen to me, truly listen, or I’m going to hang up.”

“All right.”

“You don’t know me.” Emily wipes her cheeks with the clean end of her dirty pizza napkin. “You don’t know about my mind, the things I think about. I have secrets, Aaron. Dark ones.”

“I’m listening.”

“I-I…” She swallows, clutches the phone. “I think about dead girls. Dead women. I think about having sex with them. I’ve never done it, I don’t know if I would ever do it, but I like thinking about it. It turns me on. It’s been like this since I was a kid, and there was…there was…” She exhales. “I’ve never told anybody like this, the way I’m telling you now.”

Silence.

“George knows. He read my journals.” She holds wisps of hair against the side of her face. “I don’t know why, I think he was researching all of us, you know, looking for a way in, but he found that and…”

“Used it?”

“That part of it doesn’t really matter.” She blows her nose. “The rest doesn’t matter.” She laughs. “How do you feel about me now?”

“I don’t have the words for how this information makes me feel.”

“It’s okay, Aaron.” She snorts. “You can say it.”

“What’s that?”

“That you can’t love a necrophile. That you can’t love a woman who fucks a serial killer.”

“How long has…how long have you and…” He lets out a rough breath and pauses. “How long?”

“Does it matter?” Fresh tears spill over. “Does it really?”

“No,” he sighs. For a short moment there is silence. “Are you going to be safe? Do I need to worry about you, Emily?”

She peels the napkin into shreds. “I’m not going to pull a Virginia Woolf, if that’s what you mean.”

“You don’t sound very safe right now.”

“I’m all right.” Her face screws up in an effort to hold back the sobs. “I’m all right. I’m okay.” She leans a hand into the wall and looks at her feet. “I am,” she whispers.

“Tell me where you are. I’ll come get you. We’ll talk.”

She laughs through the tears. “No. I’m sorry, Aaron.”

He draws in breath.

Emily hangs up.

She wipes her nose, turns around.

She smells ice cream wrappers and ketchup cooking into the cobbles. The day’s heat rises up and wraps around her, dampening her hairline with sweat. She looks into the crowd. Gulls turn and swoop in circles through the trees.

She picks up her drink and steps down off the sidewalk. The tide of busy people sweeps her across the street. She steps up on the opposite curb and the phone starts to ring. Emily glances over her shoulder. She walks to a storefront and pulls open the glass door. A bell jingles overhead.

It’s cool inside. Emily wanders to the picture window and pretends to look at postcards. She picks one up, flips it over and reads the back. “I knew I could count on you to lie.”

“I didn’t misrepresent my location.” Aaron closes his phone. “You assumed, and you really don’t want to be the person lecturing anyone about lying. Whether by omission or otherwise. Wouldn’t you say it’s a little late in the day for that kind of hypocrisy?”

“And I knew I could count on you to be both cold and rude.” She tucks the postcard back into its slot. “You don’t disappoint.”

“I don’t know what else you expected.” Aaron moves past her, pushes the door open.

“A little empathy.” Emily follows him onto the street. “I expected that you’d fake it, at least.”

“One can have too much of a good thing.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He stops, turns around, looks at her. “How did this happen?”

“There’s no way for me to answer you that you won’t take apart, or cut into, or string up so you can mock me with it.”

He lowers his voice. “Do you really think so little of me?”

“Right now?” Emily walks alongside him. “Seriously?” She laughs. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“This is still between us.” Aaron sighs through his nose and looks into her eyes. “You and I and Foyet. For now, it’s my intention to keep it that way.”

“Until when? You have your answers?”

“Yes.”

“Why should I talk to you, Aaron? What possible motivation could that statement give me?” She stops beneath the shade of a tree. “So…you’ll reserve judgment until I tell you what you need to know in order to judge me.” She lets loose a bitter laugh. “That’s big of you.”

“There’s no need to be so defensive.”

“No need! Oh, you’re a real piece of work. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t walk away from you right now.”

He shrugs. “I don’t have one.”

“Try. I know you can do better than that.”

He locks eyes with her. “If you walk away from me, you won’t get far.”

“So now you’re going to threaten me. That’s nice.”

“If that’s the way you want to see it.”

She glances around and up to his eyes. “If you want to talk, fine. But I’m not doing it out here.”

“We can go somewhere private.”

She looks up at him. “What did you have in mind?”

“A hotel room. Is that private enough for you?”

“I hope so.” She snorts, her gaze skipping over the surface of the crowd. “Good luck getting one if you don’t have one.”

“I have one.”

“At the Nantucket Inn?”

“Yes.” He pauses. “The others flew out this morning. There were a lot of protests but I think it’s really for the best.”

She brushes hair out of her eyes. “What?”

“Crawford’s taking over the investigation.”

“So we’re here alone? The rest of the team is gone?”

He nods. “They didn’t want to go without seeing you but I insisted.”

“All right.” She sighs. “We’ll go to your room and I’ll tell you what happened.”

“And then what?”

“We’ll see what you have to say when story time’s over.”


	29. How Do You Love Someone Like That?

The hotel room is dim inside and cool. Emily walks in, dumps her purse on one of the beds.

She eases off her flip-flops. She sits down.

Aaron sits on the edge of the opposite bed. She meets his eyes and in the weak light his face looks carved and stern, like a stone idol.

A light shiver sweeps up her spine.

“All right.” He folds his hands. “You have your privacy.”

“Okay.” Emily sits cross-legged. “Ask me a question.”

“When did this…” His eyes close and she watches his face change into something cold. “What do you even call it?” His eyelids lift. “Do you call it a relationship? An affair? What?”

Emily hauls her purse into her lap. “That’s three questions.”

His mouth makes a tight line in his face. “When did it begin?”

She unzips the purse and takes out a brush. “Which part?”

“Initial contact.”

“The beginning of March.” She tilts her head back, running the brush through her hair. “I don’t remember the date.”

“I have a hard time believing that. But all right.”

“That’s fine.” She looks at him and gathers her hair into a ponytail. “It’s your right.”

“You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?”

She wraps an elastic around her hair, pulls to tighten it. “You’re treating me like an unsub, Aaron.” She drops the brush into her purse, pushes it aside. “There’s no love or respect in that. So…no. I suppose I’m not going to make this easy for you. I don’t think you’ve earned it.”

“What would that take?”

Emily leans forward. “I don’t want to talk about this with you. I’m not going to lie. I don’t want to open myself to…to your secret ridicule, your dissection of my experience. I don’t want to go there with you.” Her voice turns confidential. “I’ll tell you what, though: I’ve learned a few things. I’m learning more things right now, as a matter of fact, by having to sit here and look at your face.” A small smile drifts onto her face. “I’m learning what it’s like to be on the other side of the table. You, in your interrogator attitude, have all the power. You get to decide what’s real and what isn’t. You’re the one who gets to label all of my feelings and put them in little boxes. Bag and tag them. Hell, you even get to qualify them,” she says with a bitter chuckle. “You get to decide what they really mean. With a single wave of your magic profiler wand, you can turn every single thing in my head into pathology.”

“If I’m hearing you as an unsub, Emily,” he says, pinning her with his eyes, “it’s because you’re sounding like one. Right now, you are. I can’t believe you don’t know that.”

She grins. “Of course I know it.” She stretches out her legs. “So what do you want to know? What do you really want to know. Ask me.”

He presses his lips together. “Did you kill those women?”

“No.”

“Did Foyet?”

“What do you think?”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“Of course it’s an answer. It’s just not an answer you like very much.”

“Do you know if he killed those women?”

Emily smiles.

“That look,” he says. “See, that look…it makes me think you do.”

“Of course it does.” She holds his gaze and tilts her head. “Why do you think I’m doing it? You’re not the only profiler in this room.”

“Now you’re playing games.”

“No, Aaron. _You’re_ playing games. Around and around we go, dancing around the questions you really want to ask. It doesn’t matter who killed those women. That’s for Crawford and his precious wonder boy to figure out. This…is about you and me. So why don’t you come out from behind your FBI credentials and ask me the real questions. Unless you’re scared?”

“I am.”

She climbs off the bed. She lifts her eyebrows. “I guess we’re done, then.”

“No.”

Emily slides into her flip-flops. She picks up her purse.

He glares. “I said no.”

She starts for the door.

“How do you know it isn’t Stockholm?”

Emily pauses, one hand on the doorknob.

“Did you…” His voice wavers. “Did you want him?”

She turns, a small smile on her face. “Now that’s more like it.” She takes a step away from the door. “See, I knew you could do it. Bravo.”

He lets out an irritated sigh. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Okay. I won’t.” Emily keeps her eyes on his face. “I don’t have an answer for that, really. There’s no way for me to describe my experience in terms you’ll take at face value. I could say that I just know, but that’s vague and it isn’t based in cold hard facts. It’s not like he picked me up in a bar. Except it kind of is, I guess, in a way.” Her smile melts into a grin. “I did come here to meet him. We did meet in a bar.” She moves around the perimeter of the room. “But it’s not the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t.” His eyes follow her. “So there was no vacation.”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“So why did you leave?” He studies her face. “Did something not go the way you planned?”

“I needed space.” She halts. “I needed to think. There’s no thinking when George is around.”

The name strikes a soft place in Aaron’s expression. “And what about me? Did you…” He swallows. “Did you mean any of the things you said?”

She glances at the window. “Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

She turns her back to the wall. “What?” She lifts an eyebrow. She folds her arms across her breasts. “What is there to understand?”

“I can’t imagine how you could mean any of it after where you’d been.”

“You’ve never had more than one lover at a time?”

“No.” Aaron shakes his head. “I haven’t. Is that what he is to you?”

Emily walks toward him on hesitant feet. “We knew each other,” she says. “A long time ago.”

“What…you knew Foyet? How? Where?” He watches her approach. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Here.” She leans over, tosses her purse onto the bed. “Summers in Nantucket, Aaron.” She sits next to him. The mattress shifts. “Every summer, until he was twenty years old, spent here. At a house in Siasconset, to be exact.” Her face softens. “Look it up. I’m sure it’s there somewhere. Don’t you read your files?”

“But you. You weren’t here. You were in the Middle East by then.”

Emily holds up two fingers. “Two summers. Eighty-five and eighty-seven. My mother loves this fucking place. I don’t talk about it much.”

“Why not?”

Her smile is thin. “The memories aren’t the best I’ve ever had.”

His voice softens. “What happened?”

“I don’t remember all of it.” She looks at her lap. “The summer of eighty-five was just boring, there was nothing to do except go to the beach. The summer of eighty-seven, though…” She trails off, looking at the cream-colored wall with its paintings of cranberry bogs. “I spent a lot of it drunk off my ass. It’s the only time I ever did a lot of drinking, and the only time I ever drank until I passed out.” She laughs. “For a couple of weeks I’d do nothing but drink until I fell asleep or passed out, whichever happened first. I had a lot of blackouts that summer. It wasn’t hard to get the liquor, you know, there was always stuff in the cottage and the staff would just replace it without any questions asked. My mother was always having parties. My dad was just there, you know, dragged along to these lawn parties like an accessory.” She moves a hand over her face. “I’m lucky I didn’t get myself killed.”

“Okay?” His tone of voice rolls out, a nice carpet, silky and soft under her feet. _Come on_, it whispers, w_alk down me. Go to the door in your head and open it. Let those old things fly out_. _Then we’ll catch them. We’ll hunt them down and put them back. The lock still works_.

“So I spent a lot of time drunk. Stoned, when I could get something.” She flips her hair to one side and looks at him. “I’ll tell you something about rich kids: they always have something, and whatever it is it’s always the best.” She straightens up, takes a deep breath. “So the upshot is that I don’t remember things from that summer so well. Parts of it are foggy. My recall is off.”

“But you remember George.”

“Yes. I do.”

“Does he remember you?”

Her smile comes on, uncertain, hovering close to something secret before spreading out. It trembles, reins itself back in. She nods. “Yeah.”

“What did you do?” Aaron puts a hand over hers and she flinches. “Were you friends?”

“I have no idea what you’d call it.”

“What was he like?”

“He looked like…he’d stepped out of a J. Crew ad,” she says with a burst of nervous giggling. “He was nineteen, I think? Eighteen? Oh, I don’t know. I just knew he was older. He was different. He wasn’t much like the other boys.”

“How so?”

Emily pulls her hand out from beneath his and lets it rest on her thigh. “He was only around for three weeks and then there was this regatta thingy whatever.” Her hand waves. “He left with his parents to go to Martha’s Vineyard. After that…I don’t know. He told me but I don’t remember.” She rolls her eyes and sighs. “After he left I got drunk, of course, because I was alone again. I didn’t want to be. Most of the kids were horrible. It sucked. I missed having him around.”

“What made him special?”

Emily looks at him. “He asked.”

Aaron reaches over, touches the backs of her fingers. “I don’t understand.”

She slips her fingers around his, looks down at her hand, and squeezes. “No matter what it was, he asked me if he could do it. He asked me for things. He wanted me to say what I was thinking. He knew how to say things…how to ask the right questions. He could communicate. That’s pretty uncommon in a teenage boy.”

“Perhaps he was, uh, overcompensating. For a lack of social skills.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” Emily pulls away. “It was the most intense thing I’d ever done, having to think about things. Being forced to think. No one thinks at that age. Focusing…” She looks at Aaron. “When you pause to ask permission at every stage of touching someone, of kissing someone, of undressing someone, it’s…well. It’s unbelievably erotic. There’s anticipation, yeah, but there’s something else. Intent, I think. Intent laid bare. It doesn’t sound like it would be erotic. It sounds like it would be a pain in the ass, like it would break the moment, but it doesn’t.”

“He wasn’t your first.”

“No. But you know that.”

“But he was the first one that really mattered.”

“The first man?” She bites her lip. She nods. Her voice is faraway, small. “Yeah.”

Aaron lets out a shaky sigh and leans over his knees, propping his elbows on them. His face falls into his hands.

Emily leans over and whispers: “Is this too much for you?”

“No, no. I’m…” He puts a hand out and leans away from her touch. “I’m all right.” He rubs his forehead. “Just give me a minute. I need a minute.”

Emily watches him, the way he breathes, the fragile curve of his back. She wants run a finger down his vertebrae, count the ridges, pull up his shirt and murmur close to them: _I see you, I read your unease, the way you brood beneath the skin_.

“It makes me sick,” he says. “But I’m going to ask you anyway. I’m going to ask because you like that, right? You like being asked how you feel?”

“All right.”

“Do you…” He breathes hard. He looks up and she sees the perplexity creeping into his features, stealthy on heavy feet, opening cracks in his expression. “Do you…how _can_ you? How do you love someone like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

She shrugs. “How it works.”

Aaron stands. “How do you feel about him?”

“I don’t know.”

He holds still. Tension thrums in his limbs. “Are you telling me the truth?”

Emily watches him. “Yes.”

“I don’t understand but I need to. I need to understand this. Emily…I need you to explain.” His fists clench. “Explain!”

“I can’t.” She swallows. “Some things don’t have an explanation.”

“That’s bullshit! That is cop-out bullshit, a way to avoid taking responsibility, and you are so much better than that.”

“What are you gonna do, Aaron?” She keeps her voice soft. “Hit me?”

“No.” He paces a little, takes a deep breath. “No. Of course not. You’re right, I need to…” He rubs his forehead. “I need to calm down.”

She pats the bed. “Come here.”

He freezes and looks at her, startled.

She opens her arms. “Come here.”

Aaron lowers his voice and glowers. “This is not the way.”

“It is, though. Come here.” She arches her back, lifts off her shirt. Her voice is soft, yielding. “Don’t you want to?”

His eyes widen. “What are you doing?”

“Shhh.” She reaches behind, unfastens her bra. She keeps her eyes on his. She stands. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, Emily…Emily,” he says, trying to inject firmness into his voice. “Emily. This is a bad time to do this.” He looks into her face. His eyebrows go up. “This is _not_ a good idea.”

She picks up his hand, brings it to her chest. Aaron’s breath catches.

She looks up at him and brings it lower, molds it around the weight of her breast. She slides her stiff nipple between his knuckles and he looks down. His breath turns ragged.

“Emily…”

“Shhhh.”

Emily lifts herself up on the balls of her feet, kisses the underside of his jaw. She burrows her nose beneath his.

“Kiss me,” she whispers.


	30. I Do It Like This

With a slow sigh he brushes his lips against hers and she takes his face in both hands, pulling him down into a kiss.

Emily lifts her hips, presses them against his thighs.

He cradles her breasts, takes her hard nipples into his fingers.

She keeps her mouth on his and moves her hands over the backs of his wrists, kneads the tiny bones together.

“Lay down,” she murmurs. “You’re too tall.”

Aaron lowers himself onto her bed. He takes her by the waist, pulls her belly into his mouth. He unfastens her jeans. She weaves her fingers through his hair and leans back, watches the rise and fall of her skin, the pink of his tongue as it paints hot lines around her navel.

Emily lifts a knee over him, plants it next to his hip. The mattress creaks. He rubs her thighs, palms her buttocks as she straddles him.

Just breath, that sound rising up and getting rough. Her mouth is wet. She licks her lips.

He pulls down her jeans and kisses the stained line of her cotton knickers.

She grabs the back of his neck, settles into his lap. She hauls his mouth up to hers.

He falls backward, pulls her on top of him. Her forearms slide down onto the cheap bedspread, her mouth landing soft and wet. His breath catches in the tumble of her hair, steams up his cheeks.

He holds her close.

Emily licks the side of his neck. She grinds against his crotch, her mouth closing over his pulse. She sucks on the skin. He moans. She makes a sweet sound and imagines the broken capillaries, a stippled purple stain rising to meet the intensity of her breath.

He reaches between her legs, clasps the crotch of her jeans. He breathes hard, rubs the denim into her writhing heat.

“How,” she murmurs and pants, hangs her lips over to his: sweet bruised fruit. “Do I love someone like that?”

Aaron draws her down into a hungry kiss. She gives it back, smothers his need with her breathless mouth.

She lifts up enough to look at his face: his sleepy eyes, their softness, a surrender loosening his skin and dreaming in the corners of his mouth. She drags her hand out of her purse.

Emily shoves the blade of the fishing knife into his pulse. His body stiffens. Her breath comes faster. His eyes widen, their dark depths filling to the brim with terrible awareness.

She pulls back to watch. A lazy blood bubble rises between his lips, bursts with a fine spray. Her mouth opens. He starts to make choking noises. The hilt trembles into the palm of her hand.

She looks into his frantic eyes. “I do it like this.”

Emily draws the blade across his struggling throat. Blood rises high into the air, whips in a wild arc. It hits the ceiling. It strikes the side of her face, gushes all over her bare and dangling breasts. She turns her face turns into the diminishing stream, the silky heat of it. Tight hot spurts burst in adrenaline shells behind her eyes. Iron fills her mouth.

She pulls on the slippery handle. The tug of flesh on metal makes her tingle. The knife breaks all the seals in his throat. She shudders at the tightening of her loins.

Aaron’s body jerks, legs kicking out in a disjointed dance. Her face flushes and her body starts to tremble. She grips him with her thighs, pressing her open mouth into his blood-streaked face, whimpering. He twitches. She pants and yanks the knife free, wraps her hand around the slackened tendons.

One of her fingers slips into the wound and there is a sharp hot twinge of pleasure, a clenching. She starts to throb. Hot piss fills the crotch of his jeans, swamps the insides of her thighs, and the piss-smell mixes in with the copper gunpowder butcher-shop stench of blood.

She licks blood off her lips and slips in another finger, the severed flesh loose and slippery underneath the skin. Severed tendons squirm away from the pressure of her touch: _still so hot, resistant, loose and heavy, the blood slowed into iron and pulling down, down, down_.

She snuggles her cunt up to the ridge of his hipbone and rocks, breathing hard, fingers burrowing in and digging for bone. _I feel this, read the Braille of your spine, a message no one has deciphered and I’ll lick the skin of your bones, know them, memorize the secret flavor._ She whimpers and holds her breath, her spine twisting, shivering into a strange superficial orgasm. The butterfly in her cunt beats its frantic wings.

She uses the knife to slice off his clothes. She holds the knife in a shaking hand, feels the sound of the fabric slicing deep in her bones.

_This is like peeling him_, she thinks, _taking away the worn woven skin to get to the tenderness beneath, the softness, the hairs, a place filled with the ghost of gooseflesh and darkly dreaming sweat_.

Beneath the clothes, he is pale.

Emily wriggles out of her ruined jeans. She climbs over him, lowers herself onto the landscape of his body, feels the still valleys and empty hills mold themselves to her rampant warmth.

She catches her breath.

Touching him stirs her blood but it’s subtle, riding deep in the pulses of her cunt. It climbs up the walls of her quivering darkness to wait.

His belly is flat. The hairs whorl into the subtle patterns of a dry streambed. She slides her scarlet fingers over them. The slow unwind of his musculature seeps into the remains of his underwear, thin and pungent.

The mingled odors of shit and urine makes her gag.

She thinks of how it burns, that irritation of piss left too long on the skin, a dim memory dancing up from the recesses of her mind: _I pissed myself because I couldn’t hold it, my tiny child’s mind too filled with the business of a new day, learning the ins and outs of hours and minutes, but a full diaper was warm and squishy and comforting. This I said to my mother at two years old, not in so many words, but she reassembled my sentences with mother-love and translated them to me through the long ripening years_.

She uses a towel to clean him. Her mind goes far away and hums to itself as she does this, cleaning his soft penis, smoothing away the dirt from behind his scrotum. The stink of it clings to the inside of her nose like a living thing, small and scared and trembling, big-eyed in the dark, yearning for deliverance.

She bends down, kisses the shy crown. She runs her hands over the big slack muscles in his thighs, the thick strong tendons attached to his feet. He has beautiful feet: strong, structured, competent. They mirror the rest of his physique.

She mashes his toes together, pushes them into her cunt. She hisses at the stretch.

Her womb is heavy. It falls forward inside her and presses up against the inside of her belly, a humid jungle rustling, stirring up a threat of rain. The bone at the base of his big toe bumps into her clit. She saws herself back and forth but it’s not enough. She abandons the foot and tries the hand instead, climbing over the loose sprawled limbs to curl her fingers atop his fingers. She rubs herself with the pads of his fingertips.

A tight hot spasm goes off deep inside her like a warning, blooming in her mouth; she writhes and struggles, working her hips, her skin glued to his drying blood. She comes with a raw grunt, a locking down; it’s a slow hard contraction, her vagina unhinged like the throat of a snake. She arches her neck, throat forming low hollow sounds and pushing them out on long tides of air. She presses her clit, still pebble-hard and rising up through its slippery nest. The muscles flutter.

The stink muscles its way down into the pit of her stomach.

She gets up off the bed and stumbles to the bathroom, the walls fading in around her, carpet soaking up through her consciousness to cushion the soles of her feet. Her knees skid on the cold linoleum.

By the time she’s bent over the toilet, even the convulsive grinding roll of vomiting feels erotic, her sweat falling off her forehead and into the bowl, her entire body throwing its weight behind what’s left of her lunch. It pushes up, up into the back of her throat. Her knees squeeze together. She holds onto the seat and heaves. The contents of her stomach shoot out of her straining mouth and splash into the toilet water. Her nose burns. She coughs and spits, bringing up nothing, hacking bile-tinged mucus into the cloudy water. She leans back on her heels and wipes her mouth. Her sweating skin crawls beneath an itching glaze of blood. She looks at her forearms, sees the sweat melting into the blood. It bubbles up through it.

She hits the flush and stands. She looks around the inside of the bathroom.

White, generic chrome, too clean for real life. There’s a dirty towel on the floor. She shivers her way into the shower, hot water slanting down a wind-driven rain. She tips her head back. She opens her mouth, lets the water fill it. Water spills over the edges, runs down her chin. The emptiness of her mind fills with a sound of rain.

She doesn’t remember washing herself.

She remembers tiptoeing through the hotel room, not making a sound, keeping herself as quiet as possible.

She digs through Aaron’s things, remembers looking for something clean to wear. She remembers washing the blood off her flip-flops. She remembers standing in the bathroom, her reflection smudged in the steamed mirror. She remembers thinking about George’s knife, the one she took off him in Texas and left sleeping in the bottom of her purse, waiting there, half-forgotten except in sharp moonlit moments when she’d sit by the window of her townhouse and take it out. She’d loosen it from its sheath and think _summers in Nantucket yes _and she’d look at it, wondering underneath the humdrum of her thoughts, industrious in her musing, wanting to know where it had been before it found its way into her hand.

Is it new? Is the metal virgin?

Emily looks at the knife and imagines her name etched in ghost runes along the narrow edge of the blade, letters so tiny it would take a magnifying glass to read them.

She imagines all the things they whispered into Aaron’s veins.

_The knife is dirty now. Used. The blade a little less sharp that it was before. A sliver of its ruthless competency has been exchanged with Aaron’s flesh: an even trade, one swipe for another, a bit of dullness for a deep wound. _

Emily stands in the bathroom. She thinks about George’s knife. It’s darker outside than it was. Her empty belly rumbles.

She thinks about opening her forearms with the blade. She imagines it but there are only words, no images, just words that mean nothing. Hollow, formless, echoing through the sleeping chamber of her lust. They rattle around inside her until they crack.

Out of them crawls a deep sweeping hunger, tight tight tight until it hurts, oh God there is so much pain, so much need, so much.

Such desire.

All the want in her world boils up into the roof of her mouth, she can’t breathe, can’t think; her tongue wakes up and howls for what it has lost: _he is another country full of strange customs I do not understand, here is my token, here is my map, I’m in, I know you from the roots up—and_ _this smell is going to drive me out of this abattoir room_. _Death stinks but that’s the price and I could kill myself wishing for water._

Emily closes her eyes.

_Oh, George. Imagine my hands lifting your knife so I can kiss the blade like an old-time princess. Let me bless your weapon. _Her hand tightens up around the handle, knuckles quivering. _I’ll write your map to freedom on my body. Taste my cobbled roads and come into the deep well of my drowning._

Her breath quickens.

Her knees weaken.

She puts on Aaron’s clean jeans and a gray t-shirt. She rolls up the cuffs. She hangs the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob.

_Okay, then. _

She steps into the anonymous hallway.

_Okay._


	31. Bonnie

_I know one of you does it_, she thinks, twisting the bent bobby pin just a little to the right.

Emily jiggles it. The padlock pops open. She threads the lock out of the handle and pushes up, pulling open the locker door.

Her eyes move over the chamber. She sees clean scrubs, bubblegum pink Crocs, the coiled tubing of a hot pink stethoscope, an empty water bottle, a dog-eared paperback copy of _50 Shades of Grey_.

A white turtleneck hangs from a hook. She reaches in and takes it down. Hanging behind it, on the hook, is a blue lanyard decorated with a collection of cloisonné pins. Swinging from the bottom of it is a plastic ID badge.

She grins. _Bingo_.

Emily lifts the badge up to eye level, watching it move in circles. She leans closer, peering at the owner’s face: _Bonnie Silverman, RN_.

Bonnie is a white woman who looks about twenty-five. She’s brown-eyed, smiling wide in her picture, wearing too much eye makeup and a small silver crucifix around her neck. Emily glances over at the Crocs as she slips the lanyard around her neck.

Bonnie has dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. Emily reaches behind and touches her own nape. Her own ponytail swings. She can’t feel the wisps of her hair through the fingertips of her nitrile gloves but she imagines the sensation, like fine silk embedded in the skin.

She loops the stethoscope around her neck. She takes the Crocs off the shelf. With a shrug she kicks off her flip-flops and drops the pink shoes onto the floor.

Emily steps into them. The foam, pre-molded to the shape of Bonnie’s feet, protests the invasion of her toes.

Emily puts a palm on the inside of the locker door. She pushes it all the way open, looks at herself in Bonnie’s small mirror. Cold light bounces off her white skin and penetrates the bruised-looking skin under her eyes. Her mouth looks swollen and red. Her cheekbones and chin are prominent, like she’s got too much face.

Emily closes the locker. She changes out of her clothes.

She looks around. Carpets cover the floors, absorbing footfalls and the clang of metal. Prints of lighthouses decorate the walls. There’s a big mirror at one end, the kind that belongs in a dance studio.

She looks sidelong at her reflection and glimpses the unguarded expression on her face before it changes: the dark eyes trapped behind cunning eyelids, the mouth like an old-fashioned vampire’s. Her FBI-earned confidence is gone, replaced with the nocturnal grace full of instinct.

The knife hangs in her pocket. The white turtleneck covers the bandage on her neck. A canvas bag leans against her feet.

She turns and faces herself, watches the Emily in the mirror move, Emily-as-Bonnie, all that pink cotton skin hanging.

Her eyes slip out of focus. Her boundaries blend into the background.

Emily picks up the bag and walks through the locker room, pushes open the door, and steps out into the dimmed hallway. As she enters the stairwell and climbs to the third floor, she envisions the layout: elevator at one end and the stairs at the other, the nurses’ station in between with its tiny lounge, and the shades of green, all of them like being underwater, cold currents moving along the walls and bearing up painted pictures of leaves.

She pushes the stairwell door open. George’s room down at this end, one unfamiliar member of Nantucket’s finest posted outside of it for the night, looking tired and slumped in his chair.

The nurses’ station is empty. Emily walks around the desk and sits for a moment, pushing the chair back so it glides to a rear cabinet. She swivels around and turns her back to the hallway.

The sound of the television wafts out of the lounge. Emily opens one of the drawers, counting to five in her head, then closes it and gets up and carries the bag into the bathroom across the hall. She leaves it under the sink and braces herself against the white porcelain, taking a deep breath. She lets it out through pursed lips. Her sweat ferments in the faint scent of fabric softener. Her heart pounds. The air in her lungs is thin and cold. She flushes the toilet and runs the water and steps out into the hallway. She glances at the back wall of the nurses’ station.

A large markerboard hangs there. Its white surface is drawn into a grid of room numbers. There are abbreviations crammed alongside jotted-down times and magnetic dots moved into various slots. Beside each room number, someone with a steady hand has used a red marker to print the last names of its occupants: Meredith/Smith, Lowell/Preston, Granger/Gatwick, Foyet.

One room is empty. She looks up and down the hall, glancing at the room numbers. A burst of canned laughter breaks out of the lounge, overlaid by the live chuckles of the nurses inside.

Emily ducks back into the bathroom to retrieve the bag and carries it into the empty room. She hides it in the patient bathroom, under the sink and beside the wastebasket.

She takes a pen out of her pocket. She pushes up the sleeve of Bonnie’s white turtleneck, turns up the inside of her forearm, and puts the point to the inside of her elbow. She starts to write. When she runs out of skin, she pushes up the sleeve on her other arm. She writes with care, going slow, biting her bottom lip as she prints clear letters that slant toward her wrists.

_What if he’s still on telemetry?_

Emily blows on her skin for a moment. She inches the cuffs back down.

_So what if he is. He’ll figure it out. He’s done it before_.

Emily reaches into her pocket. She holds the pin in her fingers until the metal gets warm. She reaches over, flicks off the bathroom light.

She opens the door, pulls off her gloves. She tosses them into the trash. She steps out and turns the corner into the hallway. The nurses’ station is still deserted. She moves toward George’s room and the cop shifts in his chair. She gives the cop’s weary eyes a modest smile. He glances at her ID badge. She loops the stethoscope up off her neck.

“Vitals,” she says.

He nods, goes back to his book.

Emily steps over the threshold. The back of her throat goes dry, then her mouth, a drought spreading from her silent vocal cords to her lips.

The room is dark. George is asleep. There are no machines, no steady beeps. She reaches up to a cardboard box mounted beside the door and pulls out a fresh pair of gloves.

Emily moves to the head of the bed. She pulls on the gloves and puts a hand on her pocket, taking hold of the pin, her heart pounding and her fingers wet inside their thin barriers. Bonnie’s Crocs make no sound on the gleaming floor tiles. She leaves the pin in her pocket and works her sleeves up past the elbows before the sweat can creep all over her body. She steps closer, her thighs pressing against the rail, and with the pin between her fingers she reaches over and rests her hand on his locked wrist.

His breath rises up out of sleep. She watches at his face as she feels the links, the awareness filtering into his sleeping skin. Her thumb presses the smooth cold metal around the slot.

His eyes open. The blood comes up in her face.

Twilight wells up in his eyes. Her knuckles bend, navigating the pin into the locking mechanism. His head shifts. The tendons flex along the underside of his wrist.

“Mr. Foyet, you need to wake up.” Emily masks the click with her voice. “It’s time for me to take your vital signs.”

He looks into her eyes. The cuff opens. She nudges it apart with the side of her wrist. Emily leans over and turns on the over-bed light.

He reaches up, molds his hand to the shape of her breast. Her fluttering breath brushes the silence.

Cold fluorescence flickers, hums into life.

He hooks his hand into the neckline of her scrub top and pulls her down. She reaches over him, her fingertips landing on the curved edge of the opposite cuff. His tongue touches the corner of her mouth. Her thumb moves over the lock. At the soft press of his lips she breathes out. The pin turns within her fingers. His breath floods her throat. The click echoes through her. He moves a hand up over her nape, tongue slipping into her mouth. He lifts up the turtleneck, trails his fingers along her flank. Her eyes close and she shivers. He swallows her tiny whimper.

She reaches into her pocket. His fingers follow her forearm, pull out the knife. Emily touches his wet mouth, listening to the acceleration of his breath.

She moves away. His head turns on the pillow, hooded eyes following her face.  She holds up her forearm.

_Room 5 is empty. Second door down on your right side. In the bathroom there is a white canvas bag with blue handles. Inside it are street clothes, shoes, other things. There is another exit on the ground floor near the front door._

She pulls down her sleeve and holds up the other forearm.

_It has no cameras. I’ll leave this ID badge with you. You’ll need it to open the door. I’ll wait for you._

He makes a gesture. She passes him the pen. He takes her hand, turns it palm-up, writes:

_Go to the boat basin._

He tucks the pen in the crook of her thumb, folds her fingers over his neat handwriting. She nods, lifts the badge up over her head. She reaches under the covers, places it on his lower belly.

His hand moves over the shape of her arm. Through the blankets, he holds her hand against the rapid rise and fall of his breath.

“Go,” he whispers.


	32. Stitches

_This isn’t how I thought it would feel._

Emily walks the brick path, still dressed in the pink scrubs. She passes through ornate bits of shade fashioned out of gold lamplight and rigging.

_There’s no bar music in my chest, no smoky sexuality in my limbs. There’s nothing to hold me down._

Her desire is hard and sharp, a blade to slice things with: the heat from her body, her footfalls from the background noise of the water, one breath from the next.

The summer heat has come in, and the warm night air is full of scent: peppery nasturtium floats on the honey scent of purple alyssum and bloody geraniums glazed with salt. She looks up through the muddying corona of light cast by the streetlamps. She licks her lips and tastes the omnipresent sea. Cold tides nestle deep into her lungs. She looks up and down the row of cottages. Most of the windows are dark.

_In the movies, a murder turns a woman out of her dowdy skin and transforms her. Sometimes she becomes a leather-bound goddess, sometimes a harpy, a trailer park siren gone mad with lust. The thunder of her pulse rings loud in her ears and drowns out her old life. A release of blood releases her blood._

She gazes upon the flat mirror of the bay, lulled into stillness by the day’s lingering heat. The gentle rocking sound of water rises up and wraps around pilings, echoing between gleaming white hulls.

_Were I a character in someone’s movie, right now I’d want a cigarette. I’d be the woman who traded in high heels or housecoats for something dangerous. I’d hold the cigarette up to my blood-red mouth, breathe in the bitter smoke, let it out in lazy curls. I’d do it and think…what? About how my anger broke through at last? Would I imagine it spreading out over the sea? I’d be afraid of my liberation from the chains of morality; after all, once you’ve committed the primary theft, all other forms fall by the wayside._

Emily walks to the furthermost end of the jetty, looks through dark branches at the broad bay. The water lies stretched out and calm beneath the black sky. She yearns across the somnolent sea with one ear turned back toward the land.

She thinks of Aaron, the memory struggling through a red haze: here is her hand on the knife, surrounded by her open purse. The purse like a mouth, a woman holding a razorblade in her cheek and here she is, rising up and down on the swift agitation of his breath, feeling for the trigger.

The moment unfolds in her fingers, races up to her spine. The razorblade cuts her loose. How hard it was to make the blade break the skin. Murder requires exceptional physical strength.

Emily closes her eyes. George is embedded in her mind, a map cast in skin. How simple to cut the cord and fashion a perfumed garden out of an abattoir.

Footsteps ascend the layers of silence. The scuff of sneakers aches deep in her belly.

She feels naked on the path. Among the flowers there’s nowhere to hide; in the yellow light the closed are doors blank faces, the occupants behind chained in sleep. She looks at the water. She doesn’t want to kill. The itch has left her hands. She smells the hot fecund salt stirring in the dark and waits for the footsteps to swell. She doesn’t want to kill, but she will if she has to.

_If l lift my face and take a deep breath, his scent will take wing and fly across the distance. It will roost in my nose, climb down onto my tongue and awaken my lips. It will._

Emily turns, pushes through currents of air, rises up through falling nets of light. Her breath runs aground on the back of her hand.

George halts beneath the shadows of branches and she reaches out, touches his collarbones through his shirt. Hot recurves thrust up through sun-browned skin and she tugs down his t-shirt collar to see. She bends her mouth to it and tastes the musky dark inside of him. His palms skim her shoulder blades. She carves a path up the side of his neck with the softness of her mouth. His hands are like wings on her face, drawing the mystery up out of her skin.

His mouth drifts wet and soft onto her neck.

_My life is a raft_. _I am floating, floating_.

 “Where?”

His fingers close around her wrists. “Here.”

She breathes around the rim of his mouth. Her fingers get lost in the wiry marsh of his hair. His hands enfold her buttocks. She reads the curves in his facial structure with her fingers, the wrinkles soft, a day’s worth of hair harsh and scraping.

“We need to go,” she whispers. “Wherever we’re going.”

“What’s different?” He lifts up her face. “You’re different.” His nose slides along the crest of her cheekbone. “Tell me.”

“I killed Aaron.”

His lips move against her cheek. “Did you like it?”

“Yes.”

He walks with her to a slip. Docked there is a big white forty-footer, its sails furled like lilies against the dark. He helps her climb up.

She steps over the rail, feels her weight dissipate throughout the hull. He unties the bright yellow knots as she crosses the deck and looks out through the change in perspective: the glimmering water, the darkened boats afloat at the feet of painted doors. George tosses the coiled rope up onto the deck. He climbs up after it and winces, teeth flashing in the dark. He steps over the railing. Emily slides a hand up beneath his loose shirt.

“Does it feel like it’s bleeding?”

He puts an arm around her waist. “No.”

She looks up at him. “We should check.”

He grips the juncture of head and neck. She folds her fingers over the waistband of his shorts. She lifts up her face. His mouth moves in, settles over hers. Tingles drift down her spine. She touches his jaw, rests her fingertips on his lips. He licks them.

“I love you,” she whispers.

He moves her hand, nuzzling the corner of her mouth. He puts a hand in her pants. “I know.”

Emily kisses him, pushes into his touch. He palms the arch of her cunt and she breathes hard. “Am I different?”

His fingers slip, soft and light, between her swollen lips. She shudders, holds on.

“Yes.”

 “How?”

“Because you’re all here.”

She whimpers, puts her face in his neck. “We should go.”

“We should,” he says. “But there’s time for this.”

He pulls back and takes hold of her hand, his wet fingers tight around hers, and turns. They go below, down a narrow row of steps and into a low-ceilinged room. He turns on a lamp, and it’s full of blue tones and dark wood, a curved chamber like the inside of a heart. They pass through it, down a short hallway and into the tiniest bedroom she’s ever seen. The curved walls cradle a double bed that’s bolted to the floor. He takes off the shirt.

Emily looks at him. “I’m all here?”

He half-turns, looks at her with eyes that carve their way to her core. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

He stretches out on the tight blue bedspread and holds out a hand. She takes it, listening to the muted shift of the sea, surrounded by it, and she lets the Crocs fall off her feet as she climbs on.

“You’re bleeding,” she whispers.

He looks down. On the bandage is a red stain.

“Do you have a suture kit somewhere?”

“Yeah.” Pain flashes across his face. He rolls onto his back. “The bench cushions…they pull up. Under there.”

Emily crawls off the bed. She pads on bare feet back into the common room and lifts up the segmented cushions. The spaces below are organized, filled with storage bins, each one labeled in George’s neat handwriting.

She opens the bin labeled _medical_ and finds the kit, its parts compartmentalized inside a red tackle box. She puts in on the floor beside her, takes out a dressing kit, and searches the little bottles of medications.

“I brought Vicodin,” she says, walking into the bedroom. “Here.”

She puts the bottle beside him on the bed. She climbs on and sits cross-legged, opening the kit. He watches her hands as they lay out the small curved needle, the forceps, the scissors, a length of heavy black line. She threads the needle, sets it aside. With delicate fingers, she peels back the edges of the white tape. The gauze lifts away from pale skin smeared in fresh blood.

“Looks like you popped two.”

He watches her. “Have you done this before?”

Emily pulls the bandage off. “No.”

“I can do it myself.”

She opens a small bottle of saline and wets a pad of gauze, uses it to wipe up the blood. “I have a better view.” She glances at his face. “I’ll do a better job.”

George pulls a pillow beneath his head and lays back. “All right.”

His incision is bruised at the edges, puckered by the sutures.

She floods the site with peroxide. He sucks in a sharp breath. In the submerged quiet, sizzling bubbles mingle with the harsh rhythm of his respiration. She dabs the wound clean. His stomach rises and falls. She leans over it, squinting, and cuts the ruined stitches. She takes hold of them with the narrow curved tips of the forceps. He reaches down, caresses the back of her neck. One at a time, she pulls them out.

“You need to straighten the edges,” he murmurs. “Take the surgical scissors.”

She looks up at him and he moves aside her hair. He moves the backs of his fingers down the side of her face.

“You want me to cut you,” she says.

“It’s lacerated.” His thumb brushes the center of her bottom lip. “The stitches tore the skin and it needs to be straight.”

She blinks, nodding. “Okay.”

“It takes a lot of control.” His voice settles into a whisper. “Be careful.”

“All right.” She wipes the blades with peroxide. “I can do this.”

She lowers her face and guides the tips of the blades close to the skin. She pats the wound, opens the blades, presses them to the skin so the ragged edge stands out against the metal.

He draws in a tight ragged breath.

She snips. The sensation is both soft and resistant.

Sweat comes in fattening beads, gathering around the roots of his hairs. She cuts the other side and his muscles tighten. He grunts.

Emily soaks up the freshening blood. The neatened incision is elliptical, a tiny cat’s-eye window. She spreads her fingers around it and gathers the edges together. She hooks the needle beneath the skin. He bites his lip. She tweezes the needle through, pulls the suture up, loops the ends around. She tugs the wound closed.

“Fuck,” he hisses.

She ties a knot. “I’m almost done.”

He breathes hard. The warm sharp scent of his sweat rises into the air.

She moves quicker the second time: needle in, pulled through, drawn away from his pierced skin. His hands curl into fists.

“Almost done,” she murmurs.

Emily ties it, cuts the line, unrolls fresh gauze across the incision. She cuts lengths of tape, seals the bandage to his skin. She looks at him as she pulls off the gloves.

“Get us out of here,” she says.


	33. Kinilaw

The vastness of the sea simplifies thought: morning is still close or it is far, noontime perches atop the mast, the long golden hours of afternoon gather into an indistinct pile. Broken into night and day, the seconds themselves cling together in moments adrift on an endless texture of waves.

Dawn, noon, twilight, dark: Emily’s life cut in quarters.

At sunset she climbs up to the deck. The wind is warm and gentle against the side of her face. She no longer hears the murmuring of the sea except in dreams.

“Do you ever dream about the people you’ve killed?”

George sits on the deck, a bowl balanced in his lap. She smells lime juice, garlic, chili peppers afloat in the tang of lime juice.

He’s still wearing aviator shades. “Sometimes.”

Earlier that afternoon, during a brief rainstorm, he caught a tuna.

The noise of the capture dragged her up out of her nap and she stood on the deck, watching him butcher it. The fish fought him. He crouched, the curved knife in his fist, and with a long stroke unzipped the silver skin. He stood over it, shirtless and spattered with blood, water dripping off his skin. The air stank of terrified depths.

Emily went below to dry off. She imagined him filleting it as she toweled her skin, long strips of red flesh dying beneath a temperamental fall of water.

Now it’s chopped up in the bowl, ice cold, tinted opaque by the acid.

_All temperate seacoast regions prepare a similar dish_. _I used to know the names yet I cannot remember a single one_.

Emily takes a seat beside him. He hands her a bowl.

“Are you dreaming about Aaron?”

“Yes.” She takes it But it’s not…I don’t know.” She shrugs, picking up her fork. “It’s not the way you might think.”

He watches her as he takes a bite. “How do you think I think?”

“That they’re nightmares?”

“Nah. I wouldn’t think that.” He grins. “Not from you.”

She glances at his face. “They’re not sexual either.”

He scratches the back of his head. “That surprises me.”

“He’s just there.” Emily looks out across the sea. The western horizon rocks back and forth. “Just there, like the same extra walking into the background of every scene in a movie.”

George swallows. “It makes all those primitive myths make sense.”

“You mean when people who would take the heads of their enemies and burn all their possessions and stuff like that? To assure that the spirit doesn’t hang around and goes to the next world?”

He nods.

Emily spears chili pepper and garlic onto her fork and takes another bite. The flavors mingle on her tongue: strong and mild, advance and retreat. She looks at him. “What do you dream about, when you dream about them?”

“I think about how it might’ve been different. Better. Sometimes, though, it’s like all of them are living in my skin and pushing to get out. Other times it’s like none of it ever happened.” He takes off the shades, tosses them onto the deck. “Just a dream, my whole life. I dream that dream more now that I’m older: I wake up and I’m still seventeen. None of this has happened yet.” He glances at her. “You haven’t happened yet.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“I dream more about being on Nantucket than I ever did before.” The slanting light makes Emily squint. “I dream about that summer all the time now except it’s not like it really was.”

George puts his bowl down next to his thigh. The wind blows her hair across her face, rattles through the sails. He reaches out, cups the bottom of her bowl.

“Are you almost done?”

“Yes.”

“What is it that you really want to know?”

She looks at him.

“You’re talking around something.”

He crawls around inside the words, tries to get his fingernails underneath her mind and it feels like a sunburn: the peeling that comes after, both sensations at the same time, the angry red pain and the delicate relief.

It’s a raw sensation, filled with unbearable tenderness.

“I’m not.” She hooks hair behind her ears. “At least I don’t think I am.”

“You want to know if I’m remorseful?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You aren’t.”

“So it’s the distance, then. You want to know where the intimacy is.” He puts an arm around her waist. “That’s how you see it, right? In your limited experience? It’s how you see me. Or maybe that’s how you see yourself.”

“Yes. I do want to know that.”

He leans over, speaks close to her ear. “You think your first would’ve been different if it had been a stranger. Right?”

“It would’ve been.” Chili oil burns on her lips. “A stranger is a stranger. Aaron wasn’t a stranger.”

“So there’s built-in meaning.”

She nods. “Yes.”

“With a stranger you have to put it there, if you want it there at all.” He moves loose hair away from her face. “That’s if you need it to be there in the first place.”

She looks at him. “Don’t tell me this is art, and that a victim is like a canvas.”

A corner of his mouth curls up into a smile. “Why not?”

“That isn’t you, it’s too abstract, I just don’t believe it.” She puts the bowl down, a few bits of fish clinging to the smooth curved plastic. “There’s so much order in your life that I can’t believe in you and art at the same time.”

“Come on, Em. There’s the urge and that’s it. It’s no more complicated than needing to eat.” He moves her lank hair away from her shoulder. “Or needing to sleep.” He rests his mouth her neck. “Or getting a hard-on.”

Emily closes her eyes. _Kinilaw_, she thinks. _That’s what the Filipinos call it_. “It’s a means to an end, though, isn’t it? For you?”

“The kill itself wears out after awhile. That’s hard for you to understand right now.”

“A person dies and takes their whole world with them. Each murder is an Armageddon all its own.”

He traces the outer edge of her ear with this fingertip. “Uh huh.”

“How do you know when you want to do it?” Her hand drifts to the small of his back. “What does it feel like for you?”

He looks into her eyes. “How did you know?”

“My circumstances are different. Aaron was getting too close to the truth. He was in love with me and part of my decision to end him was practical.”

“But not all of it.”

“I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about you.”

“It’s hard to describe in words.”

“What else would you describe it in?”

“It would be easier to show you.”

He palms her inner thigh, squeezes, and the emptiness in his voice moves through her, stirring up images of deserts and other lonely places. The wind comes and it smells of distant rain.

Emily pulls up his shirt, touches the new scar.

His breath turns in on itself.

The ruined skin is soft under her fingers, the sealed stitch holes murmuring: _I know you, God of my making_. She traces its curve with the edge of her thumb.

He strokes the  back of her wrist. A subtle shiver unfolds through the muscle beneath. She turns her head and lifts her nose, presses a kiss to his neck. Layers of salt melt into her mouth.

“You wanna watch?” he murmurs.

She nods, burying her face in the animal scent of his oily hair.

“I don’t know what makes a man like me.” He tilts her face, brushing her swollen mouth with his. “Theories are attempts to explain the things that make no sense. Like…right now I’m thinking about your tits. I’m thinking about them, and I’m thinking about the last girl that I killed.” He takes a breast into his hand. “She was for you,” he whispers. “Did you like her?”

Her breath skips. “Yeah.”

“Did you want her?”

He kisses her neck and she nods. “Yes.”

“Did you want her more than you want me?” He pushes her legs apart and kneels between them, lifting her baggy white t-shirt. Orange light gleams on her skin. He brings a nipple to his mouth.

“No.” She combs her fingers through his hair. “Not more than I want you.”

“Tell me how you would’ve done it.” The slow ascension of his breath puffs into her chest. “How you would’ve fucked her.”

“I would’ve kissed her mouth first.” She cradles the back of his head. “Her slack mouth. The coldness of it. I imagine her tasting like an incoming tide.” Emily closes her eyes. “I’d lick her lips first and breathe on them. Warm them a little.”

His hands glide over her breezy hair. His breath falls hot across her mouth. He runs his tongue across her top lip and she gasps. “Like this?” he murmurs, sucking on her bottom lip. “Is that how?”

“Y-Yes.” She shivers. “Yes just like that.”

“What next?”

“Kiss,” she whimpers. “A kiss.”

She lets her mouth go slack. He kisses her, tracing the insides of her softened lips with the tip of his tongue. He tilts her face back and fits his mouth over hers, licks at her flaccid tongue. Emily’s eyelids tremble. Her breath leaves her body in soft bursts.

“What next?”

Her mouth gropes its way to his cheek. “I’d play with her tits.”

George hauls the t-shirt up over her head, dropping it into her lap. He makes his mouth soft and light, a butterfly landing on the curve of her neck. “How?” His voice turns husky. “I need details, Emily.”

“I’d lick the nipples…but they’re cold, they won’t get hard so I have to pinch, I lick them before sucking them.” He breathes on her nipples and she squirms. “I’d suck the whole the whole thing into my mouth and bite.”

Emily shudders beneath the patient swirl of his tongue. He nuzzles one wet nipple.

“I’m going to bite,” he whispers.

She nods.

His teeth sink into her areola. She stiffens, crying out at the jolt of life within her, a low moan dragging up the inside of her throat. Her body starts to hum. He flicks his tongue against the little dents. “What else?”

“I’d rub her nipples against my clit,” she whispers.

“So you’d climb over her…” He straddles her lap and on his knees he unzips his shorts. He takes out his hard cock, a long warm string of lubrication sliding off the tip. He gathers it up with his thumb, rubs it into the underside of the head. “And…” He gathers up a breast, molds her nipple into a peak. He moves the slick head of his cock back and forth against the tip. “Like this?”

Her nipple tingles beneath the velvety friction. Her hands slide up his hips, over rumpled khaki to the smooth warmth of bare skin.

She puts her hands up beneath his shirt. “Yeah.”

She kisses the inside of his forearm. He moves a thumb across her cheekbone. “Can you come this way?”

She bites her lip. “Yeah.”

“And then?”

“The wound.” Emily reddens. “I w-wanted to…I’ve always wanted…to lick it.”

“Like it’s a pussy?”

She nods.

“Right…here?” With his fingernail, he scratches a pink line into her left breast. “That the place?”

Goosebumps move through her scalp. “Yeah.”

“Here.”

He reaches back, pulls the fishing knife out of its sheath. The dropped curve of his shoulder, the smooth flex of his arm, the breath swelling in his chest; Emily soaks up the movement and wishes for skin, a concert of movement unshielded by clothing. He moves and she feels it in her own body, her flesh mimicking him.

The curved blade grazes her skin. Her breath quivers. Her pupils dilate. The blade draws down and her body opens up, blossoms into the pain.

“Hold still, baby. That’s it.”

The light lengthens into violet dusk. His hand picks up a tremor. The blade glides over her, held straight by the turn in his wrist. Dark blood wells up. He tosses the knife aside, smears the blood across her belly. Her hips lift up on a rush of breath. Her heart flows into her pelvis. Her cunt constricts. His voice smears into his breath.

“It’s just a scratch.”

“George,” she whispers.

He leans over her and presses his tongue to the shallow cut, glides it up the length. Inside the stinging pain she unravels, heat swelling in her. He prints her skin with red kisses. He makes a trail of them to her sticky belly and the scent of fresh blood stirs up ghosts in her flesh. He takes hold of her restless hips and she thinks of Aaron, the flood of sweetness released in his blood, the harsh motions of his body clinging to life.

He pulls off her shorts. George’s tongue inverts the colors, paints pale kisses into the glaze of blood on her skin. Her belly is a floodplain.

The constant motion of the ocean rises up through the deck, rocks into the places where it touches her cold skin and climbs into her body, her tidal flesh, the skin tender and awakened. The cut in her chest sings. He finds the river in her cunt and brings his mouth to the rim. She lifts up her hips, guiding her thick scent into the fjords of his face. He moans into her hole.

“Yes.” Emily sighs into the press of his hands. “I would eat her pussy.” Her ankles tremble. “Yes. Like that. Yes.”

George’s fingers lace through hers.

She feels tethered to the earth, down through layers of crushing depths to the seabed. His hot tongue melts through the layers of everything she has ever been.

The rain falls down inside her, bringing with it the taste of mainland flowers and minerals dredged up from the depths of the sea.

Her orgasm wells up, sharp and hard, swirling with images of the tuna: its skin is slippery and turned back, the red flesh spilled onto the deck and drowning in the sweet flavor of rain. It is the breath of the tuna, its last exhalation. The sweet ache wells up and spills over, gushing out of her, creeping up to her threshold before it leaps forward and in the hard clench of her cunt she thinks of its muscular push into the blue water, the labor required to wrestle it up and out of currents. His tongue is the knife. He flays it open, bleeds it hot into his mouth. Her breath backs up in her throat. She holds onto him as she clenches and relaxes, clenches and relaxes. The torrent of spasms slows and she begins to moan.

He moves over her, caught up in the dark, chin gleaming. He takes off his shirt.

“I want your skin,” he murmurs, the outlines of the words softening on his tongue and riding his breath, quivering into all of her vulnerable spots.

His cock skids into her folds, pushes upward, crests the tangled hair of her pubis. The base of it pulse pulse pulses against her, and he steers himself, sinks down into her body. Her thighs close around him.

He thrusts, making her gasp.

“Emily,” he whispers, voice rising up through the shape of his breath.

She arches her throat.

“Emily.” His face buries itself in her neck and he draws out the syllables, loads them down with a murmured smoky sweetness: “Emily.”

Her hands skim his sweaty back. He thrusts faster, harder.

The sound of the sea rushes into her ears and fills her breath.

Heat fills her palms. He starts to tremble.

“You’re my anima,” he groans.

Her eyes open to a spinning mess of bright stars.


	34. Where Are We Going?

_I don’t know where you are in time. I can’t find you. I can’t find myself. I watched you sleep then and I watch you sleep now and I think about how I could kill you but they are hollow words. _

_No, you don’t understand. I know better, I do, but that’s the way it is: I look at you now while I look at you then, you right now, in this moment, you in my mind’s eye, and I don’t know the difference._

Emily turns onto her back. It’s dark. There’s so much darkness.

_It could be then. It can’t be then. It could be, but you and I were never on a boat. We are on a boat now. We are in your yacht. Inside it. This is now. We’re adrift._

George moves the hair out of her face. He does it a strand at a time, pinching them, smoothing them past the contour of her cheek.

_You were on a bed. The bed was like this one. My bed, my bedroom. Here. This is my bedroom. You’re in it. Here you are. Here you are._

He enters her. Slow. Slow. The rocking she can’t feel settles into the bed. She wants it, so it’s okay. Her body says yes. She thinks his cock in her, stretching her ass, will hold the moments down, but it doesn’t. The sensation, such sensation, such overwhelming sensation—ah! The aching of it.

The sharp pleasure scatters things. Dark down here, below the deck, down in the rocking hold, beneath the waterline. He comes into her. He sinks. He moves into her like he’s a lost part of her body trying to find its way back, slow strong push, ah, shoved in on a blast of breath. This friction is slow. Her spine twists like a snake. She grabs the sheets.

_I was here. You were here. We were here, in the past, in the future. We’re here now. We’re there now. Now. Oh Emily. Emily. Emily._

He talks like this, fucking her, hands shaking tight into her skin, his breath hot and trapped in the net of her hair.

_Where are we going?_

Mild wind, Gulf Stream wind, and the hot sun slipping beneath her skin, sizzling in her sweat. It’s easy to get sleepy, somnolent sun creeping in. The salt smells strong. Today the ocean is calm.

Today, just a day, like all the days that came before it.

“Where are we going?”

George looks at her. “Where do you want to go?”

She sits down beside him. Hot sky overhead, howling bright. Needles of light quiver into her eyes. She squints. Her hair is dirty. She moves it out of her mouth. “Where were you all those years?”

His mouth quirks, one corner slanting up. He turns toward the western horizon. Tall clouds billow there, fluffy columns reaching for the sky. Rigging creaks.

“Wherever you were,” she says, putting a hand on his tanned knee. “That’s where I want to go.”

“I was a lot of places.”

“Were you on the boat?”

He looks at her. 

At the expression on his face, her insides turn over and stretch, dipping their toes into the somnolent heat. It makes her smile. His expression mirrors hers, outruns it, his smile stretching wide and his voice laid back. “Sometimes.”

Emily stands up. She takes her clothes off. The cloth peels away from her salty skin and her body sighs in relief.

She gets up, walks with care across the moving deck, and dives over the side. She cuts into the blue water. The concussion jolts her awake. Down here, deep below the waves, it is cool. She ducks beneath the surface and thinks about the bedroom: afloat on the other side of the hull, tangled-up and small and dark.

The darkness of the water is vast. When she starts to shiver, she break the surface and shakes her hair over her shoulders. She ascends the silver ladder back up into the sun.

She doesn’t get dressed for a week.

_I love the night. I love it. I look up and there are things written in them, up there, in the stars. The stars make me think of you. I know it’s just my mind looking for patterns, for words, but I can’t help it. It’s what I see._

His mouth, so lazy on her skin. Inside she quivers, goosebumps floating up to meet him. The in and out of her breath rises over the sounds of the water. He lays each kiss with care, each kiss a foundation for the next one.

_Does that make it real? I see it. The stars, they say things. It comes to me through my senses._

Emily closes her eyes.

The house in Siasconset, rain hemming them in, a wind blowing in off the water and slapping the panes; rose petals torn off the gutters and flung against the glass, clinging there like blood, the red blood of the world plastered there, hanging the moist air with scent. A window is cracked open. The bed smells like him, the rumpled sheets steeped in the scent of dreaming skin.

She’s on her back. He’s leaning over her, shirtless, straddling her thighs. She looks up into his eyes and they’re so dark that they’re empty, lovely dark and deep; looking into them is like falling up, burning through a surrender to gravity. Her chest, rising and falling, her breath building up, harsh. She smells rain and roses and skin. Outside, there is thunder. Inside, she aches with desire.

She longs to tell him about the dead girls. The words tremble on her lips. The wind comes and rattles the glass, flickers inside the bedside lamp. There’s room for that kind of knowledge inside his eyes. Inside him there’s room for all of her.

Kiss me, she murmurs inside this memory.

She says it out loud, and his mouth drifts up from her wet nipples, breathes layers of warmth over her lips. The bridge of his nose grazes hers. She says it again from behind closed lids, half-asleep, lost inside herself: _kiss me_.

He does. His weight covers her. She tastes herself on his tongue.

Back then, in Siasconset, his words wrapped in northeastern thunder: I like looking into you. I see you in there.

He whispered it again and her body fell open on the awe in his voice.

In the now he is inside her and in the then he is too, both Georges sliding home the same way, with the same tremor in the breath, the same tightening of the muscles. He gathers up to thrust and Emily hears the young voice buried beneath the gravel of the old, the memory struggling up through his throat: Siasconset, a summer night. The rain drove harder against the flanks of the house. She heard a door open downstairs, his mother returning, and he put a hand over Emily’s mouth.

In the now there is no rain. Wind whistles over the deck and rattles the sails, and he moves over her, heavy and hot, his deep scooping thrusts written in the memory of her skin. George-as-John made the springs creak, her whimpers smothered beneath the press of his palm; she dug her heels into the mattress and thrust up to meet him. She came without a sound, stars exploding behind her trembling eyelids.

_I wanted to tell you about the dead girls_. _I wanted to. I wanted to_.

_I’ll get you one_. She looks up. Same eyes, different face: the intervening years a map traced onto his skin. She grinds harder. _I’ll kill her for you_, he murmurs into her mouth.

Emily cries out.

_Where are we going?_

The scent of seared tuna drifts over the calm water. The dark sky is flooded with stars. Emily sits at the head of the stairs, looking down into the warm galley light. George fills the doorway, a plate in each hand.

He’s naked, too.

“Morocco,” he says. “We’re going to Morocco.”


	35. Artifacts

They sail into the docks of Ribeira Grande, on São Miguel, under the cover of a fog-shrouded night. From the wheel she sees nothing but a smear of lights on a black shape of ascending land.

George carries their linens to a laundry.

While he’s gone, Emily moves through the market displays. She thinks of sailors. Heaps of fragrant fruit gleam. Jewelry clinks in the wind. She imagines them land-starved and stumbling into narrow alleyways packed full of waiting merchants. Cotton blouses, cotton shawls, cotton skirts billowing in the salt-laced wind. She smells cooking fish, gardenias blooming in pots. Such sensory stimulation following a long interment between the bright sky and the rugged blue sea feels luxuriant; food, the jumble of bodies, the scent of new skin beaten down by the bitter breath of greenery—the urge to surround oneself with bought things feels like worship, a tithing.

The ground shifts, her legs haunted by the ocean. She enters the heart of the market and her life struggles to unfold into land-bound dimensions. She buys herself a pair of skirts, a pair of blouses, a dress, a shawl.

She buys a woven bag to carry them in and walks to the outer edge of the market, into a tiny outdoor cantina.

She orders a bowl of beef stew. She sits beneath a canopy of bougainvillea, shocking fuchsia petals falling, and she watches the people move through the stalls as she sips broth from the bowl’s edge. She breathes in the steam.

Distance murmurs, a quarter-turn of the globe let loose beneath her skin. She swallows. The broth is rich, beaded with tiny drops of fat, laced with onions and brown blood. Long fingers of wind reach all the way from Nantucket to stir the bright petals of the bougainvillea.

The fog’s chill clings to her nose, to the tips of her fingers.

“Get anything?”

The wind blows Emily’s hair off her face. “Here.”

George slides into the seat beside her. He leans over the table and sniffs. “Smells good.”

Her stomach growls. She picks up a spoon. “There’s more than enough.”

The waiter arrives. He stands at the corner of the table and takes George’s order of stew, bread, white sangria.

“You know something?”

Emily shakes her head. She takes a sip of broth.

“My mother used to come home at night.” He watches the tourists. “Late. There would be some party in the city, she was into that, you know, the parties and the fundraisers.” He leans forward, puts his chin in his hand. “The social scene. She’d come home and she’d open my bedroom door and stand there, looking at me. I wasn’t asleep. I’d look at the wall and count the seconds of each breath so they all sounded the same.” He pauses. “Together we’d wait. I’d see her shadow on the floor and the flashes of light thrown off her sequins, scattered onto the walls.” His free hand waves in a circular gesture. “Those weird spinning flecks of light.“ He shrugs. “You know what I mean. I don’t know what we were waiting for. What _she_ was waiting for.”

The soup comes. George straightens up and takes the spoon, but he doesn’t use it.

Unasked, the waiter places an empty glass beside Emily’s bowl and fills it with sangria.

She watches George as he watches the people in the market, the spoon resting in his fingers.

Emily picks up the glass of sangria and takes a sip. Its sharp fruity flavor is discordant, jangling against the oily taste of his words. She sets it down on its ring of moisture.

“Now my father, on the other hand.” George takes a bite of stew. “I saw my father at each quarter of the school year, in the library. He sat on the other side of the desk. The room smelled like whiskey and leather. Such a cliché,” he sneers, chewing and swallowing. “He worked so hard at it, you know, to be the kind of father he thought he was supposed to be: a distant figure handing down judgments from on high. His own father was rich, all that money was inherited along with this…this thing, this studying the report cards like they were artifacts.”

“Your mother studied you.” Emily turns the sangria glass around. “Your father studied your grades.”

He nods and glances at her glass. “Yes.”

Emily takes a bite of stew.

“I used to think that she…you know, wanted to fuck with me but didn’t have the guts to do it, standing in the doorway like that. I knew she was looking at me. I could feel her eyes on me, on my body, my legs under the sheets. On the.” He leans back in the chair, looks into the bowl. He takes a bite. “You know, the shape of my dick. But then I got older, and I thought maybe it was something different: she was afraid of me in there by myself. That maybe something would happen and she wouldn’t be able to watch.” He pauses. “That maybe I was plotting in there by myself. To do something to her, or to my father. She never quite learned to trust me.” He puts the bowl on the table, breaks bread. “She never gave in all the way.”

“What would you have done?”

He dips the bread in the broth. He glances sidelong at her. “If she’d wanted me?”

Emily turns her spoon inside her stew. “Yeah.”

He shrugs a shoulder.

“Did she even feel like a mother?”

“No,” he says. “So I guess it wouldn’t have been a big deal.”

“Were you? Were you plotting in there by yourself?”

George looks at her, holds her gaze. “We had an understanding.”

Emily takes a bite. The potatoes and onions are soft, the meat tender. Her guts turn over on themselves. The thought, unformed and ruthless, squirms its way deep down inside her mind: the teenage son at the heart of the fruit, devouring it from the inside out.

She flushes, swallows. She crosses her legs, pushing the bowl away. His eyes follow the course of her hands.

She looks at him, at the side of his face, and a rawness softens into her voice. “What if you’d had a sister?”

“I don’t know.”

“If she’d wanted to get in bed with your sister.” Emily weighs the space between each word with handfuls of silence. “What would you have done then?”

“I know what you want me to say.”

The sounds of the cantina leak through her words. She searches his face. “Would you have done it?”

He puts the spoon down. He looks into her eyes.

“What if your sister had been like you?”

“That girl might’ve slept with a knife under her pillow.” His smile unfolds into a slow secret. “She might’ve played with it in her bedroom at night while she waited.” He picks up her hand. “I think she might’ve been like you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

Emily smiles. “You would’ve liked her, then, this hypothetical sister of yours.”

He shrugs.

“Would you have killed your mother for getting into bed with you?”

“It depends.”

Emily moves hair out of her face. “On what?”

He looks at her. “What if I’d liked it?”

Trapped within his gaze Emily is helpless not to imagine it: a white door opening, an old door, an expensive door. It spills light into onto the darkness of a room that smells like boy, like young man, all those racing hormones soaked into the sheets.

She sees the mother, older but well-preserved, wrapped tight in a cocktail dress. She’s tottering on her designer heels. She’s had just a little too much to drink.

Where’s John? Somewhere in the sleeping house. Maybe not, maybe he’s gone out, she doesn’t know.

George is asleep. It’s dark in the room, a little light from an alarm clock. The mother thinks he’s asleep but from the bottom of the hot cave we all retreat to when made primitive by our fears she watches his sleeping form and knows there’s something…off. He sleeps like a creature lying in wait. He looks like any adolescent boy asleep, his breathing is even and deep, but in her most secret place she knows.

The thought makes her sweat. Her body breaks down the traces of her expensive perfume, the one she had made in Paris, splintering the molecules of her good taste and setting them adrift on the darkened air; she stands in the doorway, her shadow cast long and thin, and she thinks about this young man, her son, fourteen or fifteen or sixteen years old, whenever he started to grow, to become muscular, to gasp awake in the night into a clot of sticky sheets—she looks on him in his bed and thinks of him as an animal, a beast separate from her, and she sweats into her silk.

This thought arouses her more than any other, kindles the most fear.

Emily watches the birds hop around the table legs, confused by the lights, cruising for dropped crumbs. She watches them and the heat races into her cheeks. She focuses on the antics of the birds, the little hops, how they cock their heads and look up at her.

The birds don’t distract her from the scene rising in her mind: George runs a finger up the back of Emily’s wrist, the nascent shiver hidden inside the sensation anchoring the image of the mother, _his_ mother, a middle-aged woman with an expensive figure. The short tight dress made out of black sequins. The light on her neck, highlighting the hairs pulled loose from her twist, earrings swinging above the shoulders, the expression on her face distant, befuddled, trapped, hungry. One long white hand rests on the doorframe. The gemstones on her fingers sparkle.

Perhaps it’s snowing outside, one of those New England storms blowing up the coastline. It doesn’t matter because in the house, it’s quiet. John is asleep or John is out, he is away from this moment.

Her eyes linger on the bed as she eases off her heels.

Emily leans forward, picks up her sangria glass. She feels George watching her. “Do you…do you think…” She glances at him and takes a drink. She swallows. “Do you really think you would have?”

“She wouldn’t have dared, so it doesn’t matter.” He touches her chin. A wind stirs through the bougainvillea. “I’ve made you uncomfortable, haven’t I?” A small smile twitches across his face. His voice softens. “I have discomfited you.”

She nods and takes a drink. “Yes.”

“You’re imagining it. Aren’t you?”

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Yes.”

He rests his forearm on the back of her chair. “Which part?”

“What do you mean?”

His smile is transient. “The part where she tries to get at me? Or the part where I kill her for it?”

“I don’t…” Emily swallows. She puts the glass down. She half-turns in the chair, looking at him. “I don’t go past the part where she takes her shoes off.”

He starts to chuckle. He touches her cheek. “You’re blushing.”

“This is what you’re going to talk about when we get on land?”

“I’ve been here before,” he says. “The first time I was here with my parents. I was sixteen.”

“So there are memories.”

He nods.

“Are you going to tell me about them?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

Her hand turns over inside his. Her knuckles fill his hand and their palms flatten together, hot, fingers twisting around one another like snakes.

He holds her gaze with care and tenderness, like it’s something dangerous.

“Yes,” she says.


	36. Interchangeable

Emily’s eyes are closed.

Afloat in her mind she sees the ceiling: greenish plaster, a color like green tea, thickened with the marks of the trowel, cracked in the corners. Her knuckles blanch. George’s body heat flickers against her skin. The bed underneath her drifts, borne on slow currents of light and time and darkness. His breath spells out words against the side of her face. A wind coils in through the open window, down the walls and across the floor, slinking in off the land, carrying with it a scent of damp moss.

His fingers, her fingers, winding up and around each other, through each other, drawing tight. Holding on.

_Sixteen. I was…sixteen. It was the year of my discontent_. A smile unfolds across her skin, pressing into her temple. _Do you believe me?_

She doesn’t. She smiles to herself, sleepy and filled up and made content with good food and clean skin and new soft clothes, light clothes made for days spent in the sun. Spread out across the rumpled green blanket, Emily feels tired out, weighed down, made still by the stasis of land. Her body lazy.

The walls are the color of emeralds. Milky ones, the ones her mother insists are real; the clear green flawless ones are grown in laboratories, not fake but cheap, common. She stirs on the sheets. The ceiling like tea, verdigris of the lampshade smelling like forgotten blood.

_This whole room is green_, she sighs. _I want to know about your mother. Tell me about her_.

He squeezes Emily’s hand.

_Lynn Elizabeth Cabot Foyet_, he whispers it, her name bursting into Emily’s consciousness like overripe fruit. The fingers blanch, ripening with blood at the tips. It hurts a little, squeezes against the bone. She hisses in breath. _She went to Sarah Lawrence_, _she wanted to be a painter but her father wouldn’t allow it. She wanted to be a writer too, an artist, but you know, she just wasn’t any good at it_. He twists around, stretches out over Emily’s body and arches like a cat, crawling, bringing his face to her knuckles. He brushes them with his mouth. _She was good at going to parties, getting the rich boys to look at her. _He smiles into them._ She wanted to be a lot of things, I think, but she wasn’t_. He looks up at her. _I don’t think these are the things you want to know_.

_I guess not_. Emily points her toes toward the window, flexes them. She slides one leg over the other. _How much do you know about her?_

He lets go of her hand and moves up over her, his shadow palpable, landing on her skin. He props himself up on his forearms.

Emily smiles up at him, her eyes closed, her chin tilted like she is waiting for a kiss.

He plants one wrist on either side of her head. Her knees are loose and soft on the bed, turned to one side.

The bed isn’t a very comfortable one, the mattress smells damp but not moldy, it’s lumpy, the frame creaking against each shift in weight. She spreads her arms out to the edges. It creaks now, the springs groaning beneath the points of his elbows as he positions his knees.

_I’ll do it if you put your hands on me_. Her lips soften, part a little. He nuzzles the words into her hair. His laugh is gravid and hot. _I’ll tell you about my mother if you touch me_.

Emily laughs, a bright sound, giggling, each peal chasing the other around the inside of the room.

_It’s so Freudian_, she giggles. _Really, George. I mean really_.

She plucks the hem of his shirt away from his skin. Her fingertips slide up past his waistband. The skin comes alive beneath her, moves with breath, pulls away from the softness of her touch. She hears the breath break over his smile as she uses the very centers of her fingertips, stroking him there, using the raised and whorled origins of her prints. Her belly shakes with mirth. He lets out a deep and quivering sigh. His breath rushes, loud and booming, into her ear. She gathers up the hem.

_Take this off_, she whispers.

He settles his weight on her thighs. He straightens up, lifting the shirt over his head, and she slits open her eyes and looks through her lashes at the way he arches, his belly tightening. Her hands plane up over the crests of his hipbones. He drops the shirt. Her fingers tuck into his waistband and she pulls; he rocks on his calves.

_The year of your discontent_, she murmurs. _That’s what you were saying_.

_It is_. He glides his hands down her forearms and back up. _It wasn’t because we came here. I wanted to_. George holds on to her wrists. _There was a Portuguese maid. She made me curious_.

_Of what_? Emily hears her voice, the shift beneath what would be soft, innocent, but for the sharpness, making itself ready.

She opens her eyes. A hooded look crosses his face and she feels tight, awkward. He smiles, a sunny grin reflecting brittle shards of light.

_She was an old woman_, he speaks to her like she’s a child, a much-beloved, soft, cosseted little girl. It stirs up gooseflesh. _It wasn’t that kind of curiosity_. _She talked about the islands, how jagged they are, the black rocks, the hot springs. The breath of the monster, she said. His ire, boiling the waters. She had a way with words_.

George takes Emily’s hand, puts it below his ribs, presses her fingers into his diaphragm.

_Beaches of blackened teeth, jagged, the earth’s unhappiness left to drown. That’s all_, he murmurs.

She feels it tighten at the beginning of each new phrase, pushing the air up through him. His throat floods. Emily closes her eyes.

_She drew a picture in my mind_.

She feels his eyes on her face, patient.

_I could see it, you know, the demon land in her old wrinkled face. Its ruinous footprint_. He leans down, breathes across her cheek. His nose grazes her like a blade. She shivers. _I wanted to see it._

_You aren’t talking about her_. Emily’s face turns into the shape of his mouth. She slides her wrists, her hands, through his fingers. _This isn’t your mother_. She links her fingers through his. _This is the maid you’re talking about. The old maid who made you curious. I want to know about your mother. Why did you tell me those things?_

He chuckles. _I wondered if I would kill someone here. If I would kill my first. If the land would make me do it. I have an affinity for islands._

_I know. Yes, you do.  _The smile swims onto her face and drowns there. _Or maybe they have an affinity for you._

_But it didn’t_. He leaves a kiss, chaste, on the fullest part of her cheek. _It didn’t. It only made me bored_.

The room is green. Moldy. The light is moldy. It smells good, though, like plants stirring in their sleep, opening flowers to the night.

Emily runs a slow finger up his spine, lingers the shapes of the vertebrae.

_She wasn’t interesting. She was boring. My mother. Lacking any original thought, any internal direction, she was the victim of other people’s desire. Her life…it was empty_.

His bones soft, rounded at the tips, a line of stepping-stones from pelvis to brain.

_Her desire for you?_ _Her deviance wasn’t enough to make her interesting?_

_She wasn’t hungry enough. _George balances on his forearms. He lowers his face, leaves a kiss on her neck. _She had no drive to do anything_. _She was a waste of air. She was good for the money. All that money, kept cozy in the family. _With one hand, he unfastens Emily’s buttons. _That’s what she was good for. That’s what she was_. _She wouldn’t have done it. She had no gravity. _The fabric loosens. _No strength. But she wanted to. Yes. I’m sure of it._

Emily watches his fingers on the blouse, hot and hard, dexterous and strong against the soft red cotton, the tiny buttons. He parts it down the middle. Her breasts are familiar and strange, the skin grayish, cold, her nipples pointed, dark in the wash of moldy light.

She sighs. The bed creaks. Her skin remembers his mouth, his tongue. His breath is familiar. He kisses past her ribs, traces the downward slope to her belly. She curls a hand around the back of his head and inhales, pushing the skin up to his mouth. She can’t see past the texture of his hair. Each of his kisses evaporate, chilling the skin left behind.

_Did you want her to? _she murmurs._ Did you want her to try it?_

George rests his cheek on her belly and tilts his head back, looks up at her. The greenish tint weaves into the shadows of his expression, making them by turns hungry and careful. _Sometimes._ _I wondered what she would do. How she would do it, if she was going to. I wanted to see it. I was curious._

Emily rests her curled fingers in his hair._ She was wary of you. _She smiles a little._ Your mother, the one who adopted you. She couldn’t make sense of you. Wary of you and afraid of you._

He nods.

_It was good, though, wasn’t it?_ _Her fear, her trepidation, how she made room for it, how it pulled her behavior out of true, even if it was subtle. It was nice, yes? _She brushes hair off his forehead._ It made you feel…I don’t know. Real?_

He grins. _You’re very pleased with yourself._

Emily shifts, tucking one hands behind her head. She looks down into his face. _What happened here?_

_Nothing_. He settles his head like he wants to sleep and his voice rumbles into her flesh. _The maid and my mother, they’re interchangeable_.


	37. Portuguese Words

On the nightstand is a note. She pushes the covers back and reaches over, unfolding the paper. She tilts it beneath a thin beam of sun, squinting at the brightness of the paper.

In the fresh morning light, the green walls gleam like river water.

_Meet me at last night’s cantina for breakfast. I’ll wait_.

She sits up and swings her legs over the edge of the bed, winces at the cool touch of the floor. The room smells like dust and cotton and a lingering trace of sweat. She gets up, walks over to the window. She draws back the heavy green curtains.

The view looks over a jumble of terracotta roofs toward the harbor. Clouds are disintegrating out of the sky. The water is calm, the color of gunmetal. Emily stands by the sill and pulls the puddle of skirt up over her knees. Misty sunlight falls over the white buildings. She knots the drawstring at her waist, nudges her feet into a pair of sandals, bends down to snatch her blouse off the floor.

She wanders into the bathroom, pulls it over her head. The thin material falls down around her belly. She slips a hand beneath, rubbing her navel.

The bathroom is small. Cold water gushes out of the tap. It smells volcanic. She watches her face in the round mirror as she brushes her hair. She ties it up in a ponytail, thinks about getting it cut.

Emily wraps herself in a woolen shawl and opens her door, slips out, moves through the hotel like a ghost.

Her footsteps fall softened in hallways gravid with shadow and light. When she steps into the street, the pavement feels uncertain; the last vestiges of the sea cling to the soles of her feet.

Several doors down, an old woman sits on her stoop. From a dark blue house she sells flowers out of big white recycled buckets. The sun is warm. Emily shivers inside her thin cotton blouse. She pauses next to a bucket of tangled red carnations and the wind blows up off the bay, carrying the damp chill of the water. Overhead the thin clouds fall to tatters. Emily pulls her shawl tighter around her shoulders. The old woman looks up at her.

Emily smiles, struggling to remember her handful of Portuguese words.

“Good morning.”

Emily’s feet shift. She glances around and bobs her head. “Good morning. How are you?”

“I cannot complain.” The woman’s headscarf matches the deep blue painted trim. Her face is creased with a lifetime of squinting. A loose pile of gray knitting sits in her lap. Her weathered, dexterous fingers click the needles. “Thank you.”

Emily squats and reaches forward, untangling a single carnation from the bunch. The long stem drips onto the pavement. “How much?”

“You speak like a native.” The man’s voice is a blow. “Wow.”

It brushes up against her equilibrium and her guts shift around to accommodate the sinking strangeness, the newness, and to absorb the shock of its intrusion: these are familiar Massachusetts vowels dressed in a different pitch.

Emily stands. She turns as her hand sinks, stomach quivering, the long-stemmed flower held at an angle across her waist.

She takes a step back. “How do you know I’m not a native?”

He shrugs. He’s wearing baggy jeans, a thick oatmeal-colored sweater, and black sport sandals. His face is good-looking in a way that makes her think of a long history of rugged winters. It’s pale, with rugged bones and dark blond hair cut short. His mouth slants to one side, flushed pink in the raw air, his complexion the type to turn ruddy in the cold. His forearms look strong. His hands are balled up, stuffed deep into his pockets.

“I don’t.” He grins, the expression on his face opening up. “I just guessed.”

Looking at him, at his strong white teeth, the corners of his mouth pull back. They fill Emily with a disorienting burst of spontaneity.

“You stand like an American.” He chuckles. “It’s a stupid line, I know. Seriously, though, I was wondering how well you know the town, if you in fact know the town at all. I think…” He shrugs. “Well, okay, I’ll come clean.” He tilts his face and looks up. “I’m pretty sure I’m lost.” His mouth quirks, giving a brief flash of that brilliant smile. “I feel like I’ve been walking in circles.”

Emily’s attention wanders down the street, over the different colors of the houses. “What are you looking for?”

He looks at the old woman, glances at Emily’s profile, withdraws a coin from his pocket. The old woman plucks it out of his fingers with a nod, tucks it into the little purse at her waist.

“My hotel,” he says. “I’ve only been here a couple days and all the buildings look the same to me.”

“That isn’t surprising. I can see how that might happen.” Emily looks him in the eyes, moving a loose strand of hair out of her face. “I haven’t been here very long myself, so it’s probably going to be a case of the blind leading the blind, but I’ll do my best.” His eyes make her think of the place where sky meets the open water: hazy, dark, changeable. Their corners crinkle. That hot feeling, the disorientation, rises up through her feet. “Where are you staying?”

“At the Casado Rosário?”

“You’re not lost. Just keep heading up and you’ll see it.” She bends over, tucks the flower back into its bucket. “That’s where I’m staying, too.”

“It’s okay.” He watches her. “I paid for it.”

Emily turns her head. “What?”

“The flower.” He nods toward the bucket. “Just call it a thank you.”

“All right.” She breaks off the stem. With a confused little smile, she reaches behind her head and tucks the scarlet bloom into her ponytail. “I will.”

“What’s your name?”

She pauses. “Emily.”

He holds out his hand and she takes it. His hand is strong, the fingers warm.

“Jason. Pleased to meet you.” He nods toward her hair. “It’s a good look for you.” He grins. “I like it.”

She reaches up. Her fingertips graze the petals. “Thank you.”

He tucks his hands back into his pockets. “Sure is cold here in the mornings.”

Emily looks at him sidelong. She nods. “It is.”

“Had breakfast yet?”

“Uh, no.” She wraps her hands in the edges of her shawl. “I’m on my way there now, actually.”

“If you haven’t been there yet, there’s this little cantina down the road.” Jason’s body turns toward the bay. His shoulders hunch into the wind. “Francisco’s, I think it’s called? The frittatas are out of this world.” The smile returns but its hemmed-in, self-conscious. “You should try one. The coffee’s pretty good, too.”

“Yeah, I…um, I ate there last night, actually,” she says. “I had beef stew and sangria. The white sangria.” Her weight tips toward him. “It was really good.”

“Yeah?” The smile returns, full-bore.

Emily’s stomach drops. Her head turns toward the water. The cool edge of the wind slides across her hot skin. “I need to get going.” She keeps him in the corner of her vision. “I…I’m really hungry and a little…” She turns, looks at him, and tilts her hand back and in a _comme ci comme ca_ gesture. “I guess shaky with it?” She chuckles, tucks back errant stands of hair with both hands. “Thanks for the flower.” She wraps her hands in the edges of the shawl. “It was nice meeting you.”

“All right.” He shrugs. “We’ll probably run into each other again. This place isn’t very big, you know?”

“Yeah,” she says. “It isn’t.”

He looks at her, weight shifting from foot to foot. He glances down, squints into the sun. “So I guess I’ll see you around.”

One foot crosses over the other. She nods. Her smile flickers in and out of secrecy and awkwardness. “I think so.”

“Do you want to meet up later? Maybe for lunch or something? Look, I’m here by myself, and it would be nice to hang out with another American.” He holds his hands up. “It’s not…you know, like a…I’m not trying to…I don’t mean like a date. I mean just…” He starts to laugh. “I don’t know what I mean. I mean friendship. Good times. That’s all.”

“I’m not here alone. I’ll have to talk with my companion about it.” Emily stands below him on the street. “I don’t know what he’ll think.”

“I understand. No problem.” Jason shakes his head. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“Why?”

“Well, if you’re married, or with your boyfriend, I’m not looking for any awkwardness.” He shrugs. “Third wheel. Don’t want to go there.”

“But if we meet up by chance in a restaurant somewhere,” Emily’s smile settles into her face, spreading out to her edges, “come over to our table and say hello.”

“Okay.” He holds her gaze for a moment and lets it drop. He smiles toward the horizon. “If I see you, I will do that.”

“Goodbye.”

Emily lowers her head, walks away. She feels his eyes on her, warm.

The land murmurs up through her sandals and whispers its secrets to her bones.

Like flower petals, tossed on the wind and carried ahead of her, strewing her path with fragrance and tenderness: “Have a nice day, Emily.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, this chapter contained some very bad Portuguese. I have since taken it out and replaced it with English.


	38. The Sun Is A Moth

That night the windows are left open against a rising wave of heat and her dreams are torn through with images of blood dripping from beneath her nails.

It is a slow leak, the blood heavy and thick, smearing her skin and her clothes, the doors, the tarnished silver handle of her spoon. It falls into her soup with heavy plops.

She awakens with a gasp, the sheets wound tight around her restless legs.

Beside her, George is asleep. The dark heavy silence of the room rises and falls in the slow steady rhythm of his breath.

Emily’s heart makes a meaty sound in her ears, fills them with a desperate knocking. She holds still in the bed, waits for the blood to lull in her veins. She parts her lips, takes deep breaths.

At the first teasing brush of sleep she sits up and disentangles herself from the nest of bedclothes.

The air inside the room hangs. She gets up and pushes through it, naked, walks to the window with her skin moist and her hair in tangles, longing for the stillness of the air to break. She leans forward, rests her forearms on the sill. The terracotta roofs doze in the moonlight. The stars look smeared across the sky. The distant sea glitters.

Her bladder fills.

She walks on soft feet into the bathroom and sits in the dark on cold porcelain. The noise of rushing urine disturbs the silence. Her eyes close. The stream diminishes and she is lulled by it, cradled by the emptiness of the room. She starts to doze. The images creep in. A pocket dream unfolds, nonsense made up of open water and skipping rope, and the slow shift of her flesh shoots her back up into ragged breath.

Thoughts of her dreams drift. They’re fuzzy, indistinct, but she remembers the old smell of the blood, its thickness, how dark and viscous it was. Unable to stem its flow, she printed all of her existence with it, her skin, the rocks and the walls. Her shame and her inability to explain was worse than the bandages that soaked through and fell off, the clotting that wouldn’t come.

She wandered through the rooms of her life, apologizing to the walls. She bathed herself and watched ribbons of blood get swallowed by the dark mouth of the drain.

She found her face cradled in soft petals, her mind obliterated in sweet scent, her sight massaged to sleep by tenderness. She wept, her tears disappearing into the ruffled red mound of a carnation.

Emily pulls a handful of toilet paper off the roll.

She remembers George in the afternoon, a siesta spent engaged in vigorous fucking, the kind punctuated by pulled hair and pain. She rubbed up against his caginess, her sense that something was off and he smothered her skin with his own. He pushed the pleasure up into the roof of her mouth with his body and stunted the words. He held her down, bent her back, inhaled her tremors. Wet and raw, he sensed the changing weather in her breath. That white smile had lodged deep inside her. The light of it burrowed down deep into the softest layers, the most fragile, parts that disintegrate beneath the weight of a thought. A thorn buried in the tenderness of her lust.

A restless, diaphanous hour of sunlit sleep and he was out of bed, barefoot, prowling through the room. She fought to stay below, to skim along beneath the surface of sleep, but between the heat and the subdued wildness of his energy there was no use. She sat up in bed, wet with sweat, and she watched him as he looked out the windows.

He paced from one to the other.

He told her that he wanted to move on to Ponta Delgada. Ribeira Grande was too small, certain things would show up against such a provincial background. Ponta Delgada is bigger. There are things there that we can’t get here. It’s on the other side of the island.

He looked at her and his eyes cut across her face. She shivered, hot and cold at the same time.

He moved away from the windows.

Emily said she was tired, that she wanted the still sleep of the land for another night.

Her secret was so deep that she couldn’t reveal it even to herself: a fantasy of eating at Francisco’s and sitting among the tiny fairy lights, shaded from the stars by the fuchsia drift of bougainvillea, her mouth full of something rich and delicious, looking up to see the flower-man, Jason walking by, wearing something like pale khaki trousers and one of the cotton shirts for sale in the market, loose and black and thin, falling over him the way night falls over the pale flanks of the desert.

She would see him, his profile like something weathered out of stone, his blue eyes flashing in her direction. He would slow down, and his look would be a look to resurrect vague wishes. Then the smile of recognition moving across his face, a reaction of slow sparks flying into the dark air, oh that smile, yes, like sunlight breaking across a virgin field of snow, ivory afloat on shifting red sands, pale flowers opening in the arms of the night.

Jason’s smile, unbearable in its dangerous beauty. She would see him and he wouldn’t see her, even as he _did_ see her, because in a fantasy nothing is linear, he can be there and not there, smiling at her or not smiling at all, blind to her presence because it feels safe. She can have his awareness, because inside the awareness is something that wakes her blood. In such a fantasy she is free to see the smile that’s just for her. She is free to lift up the corners of time and peek at it.

She can do it while blocking out the unfocused sense of violation. She can pull off the wings of his regard and cast them into her secret flame: _a candle has been lit inside me, for which the sun is a moth_.

Emily said that she was tired. It was the truth. She said she was hungry, and that was also the truth. Quieted by a meal cooked in the hotel kitchen, larded down with the richness of satiety, she reached out and made the noises to show her other hunger, the desire for him.

Her desire is real. Her hunger for George and her hunger for the fantasy are both living, but they are separate. Each dwells inside its own chamber at the center of her quickening heart.

Emily wipes herself. She glances at the paper, still white. She flushes the toilet. The pipes rattle inside the wall. Her mouth is dry. She wants a drink.

In her bag, there is a bottle of water. She rinses her hands, wipes them on a worn towel, and moves into the corner of the room.

“What are you doing?”

She squats and pulls the mouth of the bag apart. “I’m getting something to drink.”

The springs creak. George sighs, his voice husky with sleep. “It’s hot in here.”

Emily twists off the white cap. “Yeah.”

He lifts his head and looks at her. “Any of that water left?”

Clean, tepid water floods her mouth. She swallows. “Yeah.”

“I want to move up the coast in the morning.”

Emily moves to the bed. She sinks into her rumpled side of the mattress. Faint moonlight spills through the window, gleams on his sweat.

She takes a long drink and hands over the bottle. “I know.”

“There’s more to do in Ponta Delgada.” He sits up, sips. “I’m bored.”

“This is a small village.” Emily shrugs. “There’s not much to do here.”

George flings the empty bottle onto the floor. He pushes the sheet down around his waist. “First thing in the morning.” He settles into the pillow, closes his eyes. “Be ready.”

Emily watches the wakefulness retreat from his face. It relaxes into one wrinkle at a time. “I will.”


	39. Tomatoes

Emily smells the city before she sees it.

She is below, flipping through a copy of French Vogue, sitting in the doorway to catch the light. She scans the pictures that drew her attention that morning, while she was still sleepy: a glimpse of civilization, a starving sinewy beauty fashioned of dreams and the madness of money.

The carbon tang of combustion drifts on the air. The engines let go and the water takes over, lifting the hull. George’s footsteps reverberate through the fiberglass.

He is quick and light. The weight of his body sounds around her. “Emily!”

She pushes slick pages past one another. She stares into photographed landscapes and a touch of exhaustion clings to her eyes, the resentment of an early morning curled up in her skin. The paper is smooth and soothing, cool upon her fingertips. The covers are heavy in her hands. She doesn’t think.

“Emily.” George’s voice comes into the cabin, less deadened by layers of wood and fiberglass. She looks up at the top of the doorframe. “Come up here.”

She tosses the magazine onto the table and stands, uses the frame to pull herself up. She ascends into a hot flood of slanting orange light. Wind blows through her hair. She glances at the sunset, filtered through distant piles of cumulus clouds. He tosses coils of rope at her and Emily picks them up, walks toward the stern. He turns the engine back on, turns it down to its lowest setting. He guides the big sleek hull into the marina. She braces one foot for balance and glances at the empty slip. It’s far out on the end, closest to the open part of the bay.

“What do you think?” The wheel turns in his hands. “Dinner ashore? I’m starving.” He chuckles. “I don’t want to lay into our supplies while there’s still restaurant cooking to be had.”

“Sure. What’d you have in mind?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He eases the throttle down and out, lets the boat glide into the slip. The hull bumps up against the rubber soft as a kitten. “Maybe something new. I haven’t been here in a while and there must be a new restaurant or two. Why don’t we ask around?”

Emily shrugs a shoulder. “Works for me. Should I change?”

“Dress is pretty casual around here.” George gets up. “Help me tie up.”

Her stomach rumbles as she peers into the shallow water. It’s calm beneath the hull and a unique color, a slaty blue tinged with green and enlivened somehow, both old and enduring. Tiny gasoline rainbows float scattered on its surface.

She thinks about Morocco: Tangier, Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech. They are names written in a dusty hand on the back of her mind. Her memories are like postcards. Hot sun awakens on the surface of her skin. Her nose fills with dust. The water, slapping against the hull and laced with a heavy scent of sweat, makes her think of the Mediterranean.

“I want to, I think.” She swings over the rail and climbs down onto the dock. “Since I’ve had a shower and everything.”

He moves toward the mast. “Suit yourself.”

She finishes amid the clank of windblown links and climbs back up onto the deck. She descends into the darkness of the bedroom.

Emily clicks on a light. She opens a storage bin, digs around. She finds a red skirt at the bottom, folded, smelling faintly of gardenias.

She pulls it out, mind wandering back, crossing the long years to Morocco. Pre-FBI years, pre-adulthood years. She imagines herself wearing it there, this skirt, the dust clinging to her ankles. In the close air of the bedroom she shakes out the soft cotton tiers, loosens the knee-length underskirt that keeps it decent in the sunlight.

Emily takes down her shorts. She leaves them on the floor and steps into the gathered waistband, hauls the skirt up around her hips. She thinks of the train to Marrakech, a hasty change of clothes in the gentle rocking of a compartment. She pulls the drawstring tight. A tinkling of tiny silver bells shakes loose a memory of hash candy, the taste of it hazy in her mouth. She remembers a redhead in the bed of a truck, in the middle of the night, gone mad with the heat. Her freckly breasts.

It was a long time ago.

She pulls out a clean black tank, tight and spaghetti-strapped, and she tugs it down around her torso. On the floor are some canvas sandals and some good ones made of dark brown leather. She wishes for perfume.

She steps into the good ones, bends over to lace them up.

“Are you almost ready?”

“Yeah.” She brushes out her hair, wrapping it into a bun. “Getting there.”

“Good.”

They walk to the street and take a taxi from the marina. The driver suggests they go to the Restaurante Mariserra, but when they get there George dismisses its gloss, the dramatic seaside views.

“But I’m hungry,” says Emily. “I don’t care about authenticity right now.”

George takes her hand and pulls her into a warren of streets. “This is more what I’m talking about.”

She watches storefronts move by: cafes, cantinas, names prefaced by the abbreviation _rest._

Her hurting feet echo the sentiment. They aren’t used to thin sandals. They aren’t used to stone streets. Tourists dressed in summer linens sit in small courtyards, candles flickering on the tables, fending off moths and foraging birds. She’s hungry. The mingled scents of food make her mouth water, sharpen her impatience.

Everywhere flowers bloom out of the stone, held in deep bowls of earth, confusing the air with sweet scent. The sidewalks are clean. Music pours out of open doorways and into the wandering clusters of people. She lets go of George’s hand, pauses at an outdoor menu written in Portuguese.

She concentrates on the words as she thinks about Morocco, that time she backpacked through. A season between college and real life; in her mind it is a whole other lifetime. She’s thinking about going hungry for four days and daydreams of sizzling garlic prawns.

“Emily?”

She looks up and sees Jason. He’s there, breaking out of the human flow. He’s grinning.

“Emily? Seriously?”

His step quickens. He moves in close to shut out the background noise and he looks at her, laughing. His ruffled hair sticks up in the wind.

Emily turns toward him and he moves into the center of all this activity, dressed in khakis and a thin button-up shirt of white cotton, rolled up at the sleeves; it’s thin enough to see the shadows of his collarbones beneath it, a shadow of chest hair smattering his breastbone. He smiles at her inside a carousel of street scent, wandering people, and the thrumming bass of the bar across the street.

The warmth coming off him is palpable. The air between them trembles with it.

“What are the odds? Hi!”

“Hi,” she says, takes a small step back. Her breath draws out the word. She looks around. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same.” His smile falters. “For my part, though, I drove over. Spent the day looking at the countryside.” Her breath revives it. “What about you?”

“Ribeira Grande got kind of boring, so we sailed around the island.”

“Oh, you’re on a yacht, then?”

Emily nods. “Yeah.”

George comes up behind her. He puts a firm hand on the small of her back and she hears the smile build up in his face before he opens his mouth.

“Hello there,” he says. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Jason’s eyes shift. “My name’s Jason Solomon.”

George laughs, rich and long, all hipshot with relaxed grace. He holds out a hand. “Well I’ll be.” A touch of the American South creeps into his voice. “My name’s Jason, too. Imagine that.”

Emily half-turns and looks at him. He glances at her and the smile on his face is slow, familiar, like a curtain lifting.

“It’s good to meet you.”

Jason grins and shakes George’s hand. “Hi.” He glances at Emily. “Emily and I met in Ribeira Grande.”

“Did you now?” George’s arm slides around her waist. He pulls her to his hip. “I never heard a thing about it.” He grips her skin through the cotton. “Too bad, too. It might’ve been nice to share a meal with a fellow American.”

“It wasn’t a big deal,” says Emily, moving away to get a closer look at the menu. “We exchanged a few words in the street. It was yesterday morning, when I was on my way to breakfast.”

“Emmy and I are on the hunt for some supper. You wouldn’t happen to know a good place, would you?”

“Actually, I was heading over there.” Jason turns and tips his head toward the bar. “I had lunch there today and it was so good that I decided to come back for supper, even though it’s loud. At night they have dancing, salsa, tango, stuff like that. It’s different thing, depending on the night.” He shrugs. “I talked to a guy this afternoon. A local guy. He says they have the best bacalhau à brás in the city.”

“I don’t know what that is,” says Emily, “but I’m so hungry that it sounds delicious.”

“It’s salt cod, potato shreds, onion and egg,” says Jason. He flashes her a brief smile. “With black olives and parsley.”

Emily grins. “Have you ever had it?”

“I have,” says George. “It isn’t bad.”

“I haven’t,” says Jason. “But I’d like to.” He glances at George. “Do you want to join me?”

“Yes,” says Emily.

“Now darlin.” George pulls back and looks at her. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” She turns around and looks in his eyes. She shrugs a shoulder. “Why not?”

“Look, it’s no trouble if you want to do your own thing.” Jason looks back and forth between them, his half-smile hovering. “I totally understand.”

Emily walks toward the bar. She looks at him over her shoulder as she passes. “Come on,” she says. “I am literally starving.”

Except she’s not. Emily remembers what it was like: between the hunger and the relentless heat, the hours ground down into days and she was hungry to the tips of her toes, hungry past hunger pains and growing dizzy on streetcorners.

She was so hungry that the food lived in her, memories of flavors haunting her mouth and dancing on her tongue, hiding between her teeth until she smelled the mud in the river and her saliva flowed. She slept a lot. She stayed in during the day, drinking water, and went out only at night.

She saw dervishes flickering in the dunes. Banquets constructed out of past meals filled her dreams until waking turned into punishment.

She is starving for more than simple food. George smells her hunger. Emily sees it in the way his body moves but he cannot read her; she sees that in his body too, in the moving closer and the hardness of his gestures, his surrender to the wake of her body. She sees him hunting for it, feels his scrutiny on her like a memory of the intense sun.

The three of them pass through the street, slipping sideways between the bumpers of parked cars. The name of the bar, Tomate, hangs over the doors on a chipped and faded plank that has been nailed to the wall. The windows are covered with blackout curtains. The doors are painted blue, chocked open, flanked with pots of bright impatiens. Music pours through them, out of singing darkness; it comes in waves, it washes over them filled with driving rhythms, drums beating like a frantic heart.

Jason puts a hand on Emily’s arm and stops her at the threshold.

She halts, one foot on the floor and the other in the street. He looks at her and points to the sign overhead.

He leans over, his face close to her ear. She smells the passing of his clean breath. “What does it mean?”

“Tomatoes.” She pulls back. She steps closer to George. “It means tomatoes.”


	40. The Way A Girl Chooses A Doll

Emily watches the others, the dancers, the way they move around each other, how the feet and the upper bodies initiate motion independent of one another. It’s a packed floor, small, the air thick and moist, laced with cigarette smoke and a smell of beer.

She knows by George’s look that this is the kind of place he can’t stand: too much humanity and all the wrong kinds, the unrefined, minds dull as mud, passions unexamined, crude taste buds awakened only by the strongest flavors.

She likes them, the fat plain-faced women with their sinewy husbands, hangdog faces enlivened by the music; the magic of the notes, the rhythm of it, moves into swollen feet, callused feet, moves into them with gentleness. It caresses tired toes, makes them young again. The oldest of the dancers move with the frenetic energy of forgotten youth. The light shifts and flashes. It is full of smoke like quartz, softened at its edges.

Like all hallowed moments, it exists and yet it doesn’t.

“I’ll have the bacalhau à bras,” she says to the waiter.

Emily sits in the middle, at the back of the round table. Her back is to the wall.

At her right, George won’t drink. He refuses the wine suggestions, the sangria, the bottles of beer that the waiter tries to tempt him with.

Emily takes a sip of sangria.

At her left, Jason has a bottle of local beer standing half-empty in front of him; it’s been in the same place for the twenty minutes the three of them have been sitting, at the high table in the corner, off to one side of the dance floor.

The sangria is delicious. A pitcher of it occupies the center of the table, heart’s blood packed with thin slices of orange. The atmosphere of the room weaves through the ice and makes it darker.

“I’ll have the same,” says Jason.

George smiles at the waiter. “I’ll have the cozido à portuguesa.”

There is bread at the center of the table. Bread in a basket, little round rolls of it, the crust dark and shiny. No one touches it.

“So.” George leans back in the chair and picks up his glass of club soda. A slice of lime floats adrift on the ice. He looks at Jason, his gaze turned sidelong and framed with a whiff of nonchalance. “What brings you here? To Portugal, I mean?”

“It’s a vacation, but it’s also kind of a test drive.” Jason looks back and forth between them. He picks up the beer bottle. It hovers near his mouth. “A clinic in Terceira wants to offer me a job.”

“A clinic.” Emily turns her sangria glass. She prints the scarred wood with interlocking rings. “You’re a doctor?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“We don’t work.” George takes a sip. “There’s family money.”

Jason pauses. He glances at Emily and nods. “I see.”

At the edge of the dance floor, a man takes hold of his partner’s waist and she falls into a dip. Emily watches them over Jason’s shoulder. Her partner leans over her, hauls her up, lets her drop again. The woman’s long dark hair whips in a circle. Strands of it cling to the corners of her sweaty mouth. They rise together and Emily’s fluttering stomach drops.

Jason watches her with a closed smile hovering around his mouth. He takes a drink and blinks and it all seems orchestrated: his blink timed to the rise and fall of his throat, his pink mouth wet with beer as he lowers the bottle. His tongue licks its flavor away at the exact moment the glass touches the wood.

“Excuse me,” she says, glancing at George and looking at Jason. “I need to use the bathroom.”

Emily slides down out of the chair. She walks through the dance floor, moves toward the back. She circles the bar.

_The bathrooms are always in the back_.

It is tiny, water-closet style. She closes herself in. Within the enclosed space, the music beats all around her. It permeates her bones.

She uses the toilet and washes her hands in the little sink. It juts out of the wall, a clamshell balanced upon the curve of a pipe. The mirror is cracked, the silver backing worn thin. Emily’s toes tap to the beat. She dries her hands on the small towel hanging on the wall. She holds her curled fingers over her nose, smells the mingled scents of mineral water and lilac soap.

She runs into Jason at the bar. His body, tight with forward motion, relaxes upon sight of her.

Emily hooks a thumb over one shoulder. “The men’s room is that way.”

“Do you want to dance?”

She turns her ear to him, standing on her tiptoes. “What?”

He grins. “I said would you like to dance?”

“You know how?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “A little.”

Emily lifts her voice up over the music. “This is salsa.”

He smiles. “I know.”

She smiles. “All right, then.”

She goes into the center of the floor where a space appears and reappears, hemmed in with feet, torn open by the spinning of bodies.

Jason follows, close enough behind her for her to feel his heat, his arms and legs pushing it up against the bare parts of her skin that are already sweating.

Emily turns to face him. She steps into the music and he takes her hand, holds it up, concentrates on the rhythm of her steps. His hand feels different, it is its own thing and separate from the moment.

There’s nothing like it in her mind. It’s thicker in places. The skin is dry at the edges, rough. He holds her arm aloft, his weight rocking from side to side. He is not tall. His body is thick and muscular, his strength visible, quiet but there, a hibernating animal. He is easy to follow. His form is solid, like his physique, a body that is made to scale things, to climb. His hips are loose and fluid. He looks up and smiles, that easy smile, his weapon spreading white across his face. It kindles something in his eyes, some awareness.

The sight of him makes her buoyant.

He unfolds her and she spins, the tiers of her skirt unfolding, the noise of the dancers roaring. It feels like liftoff.

He pulls her close. She sways into it and her vertebrae come loose, unlaced from the rest of her body.

“Are you married?”

She puts a hand on his shoulder. Her touch is light.

He watches her face. “Because I can’t figure it out.”

“What? No, no.” The interior turns around them. “We’re not married.”

“Am I doing something bad right now?” Jason looks down, the sweat dark in his hair, the tiny beads glimmering on his upper lip. He watches his hand graze her hip, hover over the way it undulates. He looks into her eyes. “Is this going to make life difficult for you?”

“What an interesting way of asking that question.”

Jason twirls her once, twice. The centrifugal force spreads out to the edges of her hips. Each turn of her head is crisp. The walls blur and then slow into the turnout. She steps closer.

“He comes off as a controlling guy.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

He loops her arm up over her head, slows it down. Emily pulls the elastic out of her hair and shakes it free.

The backs of Jason’s fingers brush her collarbone. “You don’t come across as the kind of woman who likes to be controlled.”

“Do you think our food as arrived yet?”

“I don’t know.” He catches her hand. “Shall we find out?”

Emily walks out of the dance. She moves ahead of him through the changing crowd, her shoulder joint stretching. It’s a pleasant sensation, this tug in her bones. She enjoys towing the lightness of his weight, the way he balances on the balls of his feet.

At the table George is eating a bit of the bread. The small loaf is broken open, crumbs scattered on the plate.

He watches her approach with darkened eyes, a shielded gaze. She watches him as they come to the table and she reads in his gestures that she has become a conspirator. Emily takes her seat, a vague cold climbing into her lap. The food comes as she settles into the seat. She glances at George as he eats. The nonchalance, the calm in his gestures, his toned-down smile, all of it whispers of Jason’s impending doom.

_He has been thinking all along that this is a choice_.

Emily shakes out her napkin, pats it into place with cool fingertips. She catches Jason watching her. He grins and she is warm, a prisoner in her skin, helpless.

_He is thinking that I have chosen the way a girl chooses a doll. He’ll wait until the right moment, until Jason goes to use the bathroom, until noise has come between us. He’ll lean over, he’ll put his hand on me, he’ll murmur it into my ear._

She takes a sip of sangria and imagines George’s fingers shifting the cotton, pulling it up past the knee. The music, the lingering flavors of the sangria, the delicious aromas of food all drown out the ghost of her thought: blunt nails drawing lines on the inside of her thigh.

_But Emily, _his voice whispers in her mind._ You said you wanted a girl._

The fish on her plate gives off delicate curls of steam. She stirs it up and takes a bite. Her throat closes.


	41. This Kind Of Establishment

She chews, taking her time, looking back and forth between George and Jason, watching how they talk to each other:

What kind of doctor are you?

The family kind.

Are you a family man, then?

Not yet—here there is a meaningful look, a shadow passing over his expression, absorbed by it—maybe someday.

Emily swallows, eases her food past the fluttering in her throat, through muscles ready to spring shut like a trap. Below her stomach churns, turns over inside her abdomen, but it’s a gentle churning, the kind that percolates with adrenaline.

The waiter comes. He offers cocktails and a dessert custard. The thought of eating it, the soft gelid custard exploding sugar on her tongue, makes her stomach halt.

Jason nods. He says that yes he would like to have some of the custard, is it made with cinnamon, is it like a flan? The waiter nods and smiles, yes he says, yes; it is like crème caramel too.

Jason orders the custard.

Emily imagines the taste of it in his mouth, the flavor on his tongue mingled with beer and the tang of his skin that she imagines as thick and masculine, dizzying: looking at his profile, she notices the thickness of his jawbone and his chin, the prominence of his brow.

_A rugged bone structure comes from the surge of testosterone at puberty_.

Emily watches him talk. She watches him smile and tries to imagine his face soft and boyish, the foundation of what she is seeing, what his face might’ve been before the hormones unlocked inside his blood, and she can’t. His face is a landscape: the skin is soil declaring the latitude of its birth, the nose and chin old mountains eroded by years of rigorous kindness. The teeth, his smile, are a gate.

The custard comes.

It is white and creamy, set in the center of a white plate, floating on a spill of golden syrup. It trembles like her flesh. She smells the delicacy of the cinnamon, the flecks of vanilla. Jason takes the first bite. Emily watches him; she leans forward and leaves her body, passes through her skin to be near this moment, the first taste of sugar and sweet cream alighting in his face.

George sees her.

She sits back, folds her hands.

The darkness gathers on his face. Wind rattles under distant eaves. Thunder rumbles in his eyes.

“This is delicious.” Jason slices a piece away from the mold with the edge of his spoon. He lifts his eyes to Emily. “Do you want to try some?”

She shakes her head, glancing at George out of the corners of her eyes. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

She’s not. She looks at the spoon in his hand and sees herself leaning over, opening her mouth like a child, and at the imagined unfolding of the flavor she feels hot and cold and hot, shivering through the rapid changes in her chemistry.

She isn’t aware that she’s doing it.

In real time, through her real life, she’s leaning toward Jason beneath George’s gaze as it turns hostile, as it stings in her heart. The soft skins of her lips come apart. She breathes with her mouth and Jason’s expression softens through surprise, through pleasure, through to forgetfulness, innocence, down to the earliest sensual pleasures: the softness of a blanket upon a drowsy cheek, the touch of a loving hand, the reflex of saliva squirting into the taste of a peach.

All of this alights on his features at the clink of the spoon against her teeth. She angles her head, looks up at him as she takes it into her mouth.

Her eyes close. The flavor fills the world.

“Jason, do you want some too?”

Emily is disoriented. She opens her eyes, turns a bewildered look toward Jason in time to remember that George had told Jason that his name was Jason too.

A mean trick, a name tossed back and forth between them, from voice to voice, like infinity glimpsed in a mirror.

George takes hold of his spoon. He sounds sharklike, syllables slithering around inside a cloud of smoke. “I can feed myself.”

“Here.” Jason slides over the plate. “Have the rest.”

The room fills with strange energy. It gains a life that wants to spin but stays still like a held breath. With each movement of her head, languor drifts out of the walls and settles into her bones. She blinks, tests her perception; she wonders if George put something in her sangria, if he did it while she and Jason were dancing.

_I’m too sharp_, she thinks. Not _he wouldn’t do that,_ but _I’m too sharp_.

Emily climbs down out of the chair.

George watches her.

Jason asks her where she’s going. The floor remains still beneath her feet. It remains still but starts to throb, like it has a heart, like the walls are its lungs and the vessels stretch beneath the floorboard and here, in this part, beneath her feet, there is a pulse.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” she says. “And then I am going to dance.”

She turns her back on them both, weaves through the bodies, through the darkness, her nose hopping from sweat smell to sweat smell, reading the secrets of skin. Inside the ladies’ room, she sighs and feels heavy. She leans her face against the door.

_I am drunk_, she thinks. _That is what this is, it has been a very long time since I was drunk, I have no tolerance for it, I’ve had too much sangria and I am the only one drinking it, I need to stop. I need to have some water. I need to move, to burn the alcohol out of my skin_.

But she still doesn’t feel drunk.

This is like being in Morocco, back then, she and Jordan and Susie sharing the hash candy, Susie was beautiful, her red hair aflame, a siren in the desert. Emily didn’t get enough of a buzz to cloud her up but got just enough to loosen her up, to separate her from her skin and make her feel like this, like she is sloshing around inside herself, banging up against her bones and the firm vitality of her organs, like she is a pinball in her own mind, banging off memories and blood vessels. The world swells, collapses, stabilizes. Emily’s fingers curl up against the wood. Clarity rushes into her head. She opens the door.

Jason is there. It is dark in the corner, away from the lights, and he is standing there with this boyish look on his face, muted yearning mixed with shame like a radioactive charge everyone carries out of childhood, the half-life of shame, of finding oneself caught in the wallow of one’s feelings. People like him carry it the longest: straight-teeth men who grow out of straight-teeth boys, raised soft and studious inside their gated communities and then sent out into the Ivy League to get polished up into doctors.

He opens his mouth to speak, closes it.

He looks at her.

He keeps on looking at her and his eyebrows twitch closer together, as if they want to knot but cannot find the strength. Emily can’t bear the sight of his pink lips, his slanted mouth. Looking at it makes her angry, the way it trembles, it makes her yearn. It fills her with an itching lust that she doesn’t understand.

She reaches out through the open door, pulls him inside. He is heavy. His feet resist.

She throws her weight behind her arm.

He wants to talk and she covers his mouth, scraping him on the edge of the door in her haste to get it closed. His breath comes quick and hot, his mouth moves, she feels his mumbling vibrate into the tendons of her hand and it shortens her breath, makes the moment unbearable with excitement.

She slows her breath, loosens her fingers on his cheeks. She moves her fingers into the fine grain of his skin. His mouth is soft. The hairs scrape her sensitive fingertips, grind into the lines of her palm. His breath flies out between his lips, torn and fluttering.

“Hush,” she murmurs, lips flattened into her knuckles. She rubs them over the backs of her fingers, the long cool bones pressed between her lips and his. “Shhh, now.” Her breath is a steaming flood. “I want to kiss you.”

His eyes widen, lashes fluttering. His pupils tremble like a cat’s, some animal that’s filled to the brim with trust.

“Will you let me kiss you?”

His throat works as he swallows. He nods.

Emily drops her hand. She takes his face in her hands and molds her fingers around the shapes in his face, the soft thickness of his flesh. He presses back into the door. Her nose bumps up underneath his, rubbing, her mouth coming closer until she smells the sweat waiting inside his skin.

The air puffs out of him, ragged, overlapping her exhalations, sweet with beer and caramel. Her breathing increases.

He flinches at the first touch of her lips. She is soft as a whisper, like petals falling. She moves in, she is pulled into empty space, tugged forward by the flinching of his body, and her open mouth collides with his.

His hands slide over her face, urgent, rough, pushing into her pliancy. He tightens his grip on the sides of her skull. He tilts her face and the door rattles with the shift in her weight. He surrenders to the weakness of her lips, to their softness.

Emily’s mind whispers around the tongue in her mouth: _Run_.

“Emily.” His lips move against hers, the sweet air shaping itself around her tongue. “Thank you, I want to,” he pauses, hands trembling, and breathes into her chin. “I-I…want…” She runs her tongue along the words. His breath climbs, hits a high note. “I’m serious.” He moves back, hits his head on the door. “I’m serious, I want…” He slides his hands up over her jaw. He leans his forehead into hers. “Come back with me.” He brushes the side of her nose with his. “This is crazy.” He smiles. “I’m at the Talisman.”

She takes his hands off her face. “I can’t.”

He pulls back and looks at her. His eyebrows pull together. The ragged tone of his voice sharpens. “Then what the hell is this?”

Emily traces the turn in his jaw; she starts below the earlobe and her finger slides, slow, to the tip of his chin. “Take it with you,” she murmurs. “The memory. Of this. Take it home with you. Keep it…somewhere.”

He pushes her away. “Fuck that!”

Emily tries to move past him and he pushes the heel of his hand into the jamb, tendons standing out along the inside of his wrist. The muscles ripple in his forearm. “Wait.”

“Let me out!”

“You started this.”

She sucks in a deep breath, puffs her cheeks, lets it out. “Yeah, so?”

He drops his arm. “Fine.”

“Look.” The strength rushes out of her, weakness spreading through her body like a poison. She wants to weep. ”You should…you should…” She looks away. “Go back to Ribeira Grande tonight.”

He watches the delicate shifting of her facial expressions, the hidden emotions creeping behind their veils of shadow. He takes in a breath, holds it, and in that second something rises into his eyes, a burst of realization. His mouth opens.

For the space of a heartbeat, his lips remains parted.

“Are you scared of him? Because…because you can end this,” he says, looking into her, laying emphasis on the words. “Right now. I’ll take you; look, I’ll take you to Ribeira Grande with me, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go if that’s what it is, if you’re afraid of him.” He’s looking into her eyes, so earnest, and she almost misses the tight anger in his voice, seething down below his concern. “It doesn’t have to be about this, us, whatever you want to call it.” His eyes, searching hers. “Okay?”

Emily starts to nod when a fist pounds on the door. Jason jumps, turning around to face the intrusion. The voice bellows over the music.

Jason looks at her over his shoulder. “What is he saying?”

“He’s saying that he doesn’t run this kind of establishment.”

“Okay. Okay. Look.” He turns around, puts his hands on her shoulders. “I’m in room 23. I’ll be there tonight and tomorrow night. For any reason.” He holds her in place with his eyes. “For any reason, at any time, I mean it. Okay?” He touches her face, a smile straightening his mouth. “Okay? No pressure.” The smile broadens. “No pressure. I mean it.”

Emily nods. “Okay.”

Jason opens the door.


	42. Talisman

_A talisman of what?_

It is this thought that circles around and around inside her head, chirping like a bird, bashing itself up against her walls.

_A strange name for a hotel. Strange._

The dinner falls apart. Jason leaves money on the table and walks out. Emily sits at the table, left behind, picking at food that has gone cold. Despite the turmoil of the music and tension, of Jason’s silent departure, she’s still trying to eat.

“What happened?”

Emily shakes her head. “Nothing worth repeating.”

George smiles at her. She can’t stand it, the slow smugness, the crawling smile sticky at the corners of his mouth. Her shoulders hunch. He reaches out to touch her hair, brushes it away from her cheek, and when he starts to speak she turns her head away. Emily’s body shifts. She puts her fork down.

He tries again and there is hidden violence in the way she pulls away from him, a warning shot.

He pulls his hand back. He looks at her. “What’s wrong with you?”

Emily tosses her napkin onto the plate. She looks at him long and hard, her mouth trembling. Her jaw is tight. She pushes herself away from the table and slides off the chair. He reaches out lightning-quick and grabs her wrist, jerks the momentum out of her feet.

“What is this?” He sneers. “Do you need to have your tantrum?” He lowers his voice. He gives her his coldest look. “Is that what this is about? Is that tonight’s script?”

Emily grits her teeth. She wants to twist out of his grip but weakness pulls her down. Unfocused fear turns her knees to water. She feels it rising, struggles against it, the urge to swoon. She breathes hard.

She clenches her jaw. “Let go of me.”

“You play it so well.” He chuckles and tosses her arm into her chest. “Go then. Run.”

Emily takes a step closer. Her voice gathers in her throat, focuses there. She lowers it to a growl. “Fuck you.”

“Should I slap you?” His eyes gleam. “Would it make things real enough for you?”

Emily turns her back to him and her hair feels good when it whips against her cheeks. She pushes her way through crowded tables, milling customers, sweaty dancers. Each step makes her feel light, so light she fears getting lost, drifting away. The music drills into her head and pounds against the walls of her heart.

George yells after her. The music is sweet and merciful, relentlessness, hammering his voice, pulling it down. It tramples his voice to death beneath an endless stampede of rhythm.

She comes close to the door and it’s like a net closing. Out in the street, the air opens up. She takes a breath, pulls the essence of the city into her lungs.

It’s night. It’s not quiet and it is, the activity on the street is muted. People walk by, talking in low voices to one another.

Emily wraps her arms around herself. She shrinks back from the sudden cold, the transition from sweat to night. Her teeth chatter.

She walks uphill, away from the water. The burn in her muscles makes her warm. She moves upstream; all other foot traffic passes her, flowing downward, down toward the water, the seafront. Her footsteps, both soft and hollow. The long loop road with its nightspots and restaurants glitters toward the sea.

Emily stops and grabs the long sleeve of a passing man to get his attention. He halts, looking on her with surprise, this interruption in his night walk, the regard of a tourist. In halting Portuguese, she asks him how to get to the Talisman. He points out the way. He takes an old receipt out of his pocket and draws a map.

“Long way,” he says to her in English. “Long way to walk.”

“I don’t have any money.”

He gives her enough to take a taxi. “Too far.” He pushes crumpled euros into her hand. “Too far to walk. It would be hurting your feet to walk so far.”

Emily says thank you. He nods, mumbles something she can’t understand. His smile is warm and fleeting.

Inside the taxi, the air is still. It smells of cigarette smoke, wine, ancient leather. She sits in the back and watches the buildings flow by, the tall white narrow faces, windows like eyes. She sees the topmost tufts of palm trees. The paved street with its diamond checkers unrolls beneath the tires.

The driver is a dark-skinned woman who keeps glancing at Emily in the rearview. Emily smiles each time, her smile wilting as they come close to the hotel building and the car slows. The woman pulls up. She looks at Emily in the rearview for a long moment, rosary beads swinging. Weak light strikes off the crystalline beads, scattering points of light.

“You don’t look so good.”

“Thank you.” Emily hands her the money. “Thank you.”

The woman’s eyes are luminous in the dark, caught in wrinkles, turned mysterious with time. “What you’re running from, I hope it doesn’t catch you.”

Emily pulls away from those eyes. She climbs out of the car and slams the door, a sudden fury sweeping through her and threatening to choke her. She forces a short sharp breath through her nose and runs away, below the windows shaped like French doors with their little wrought-iron balconies. She runs along the white flank of the building. A boy in the street stops to watch.

Her sandals scuff the ground. The leather straps erode her skin. The pain slips up beneath her consciousness as she walks through the front doors.

She asks the clerk where to find room 23. He tells her it is on the second floor. He says it once in English and peers at her, says it once in Portuguese.

Emily holds back the throbbing pain. She nods, says thank you.

The night comes back to her and pulls itself tight around her shoulders.

_I am here_, she thinks. _This is the Talisman_.

In the corridor, on the second floor, her face crumples. She stops, untying the sandals, and loosens them from her feet. She lifts each foot and inspects the damage. Nothing is broken. She leans against the wall. She cradles her right foot in her hands, massaging the angry skin with her fingertips.

She picks up her shoes and walks to the door. She stands outside it, listening, holding her breath to wait for any sound that might find its way around the jamb’s seal.

She holds up her fist and hesitates.

Emily bites her lip. She knocks.

The door opens. Jason is there, hiding the surprise in his eyes. He stands sideways, wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt. He glances at her sandals and steps back to look at her feet. “You didn’t walk here, did you?”

“No. An old fisherman gave me cab fare.”

“Did he tell you he was a fisherman?”

“No.” Emily shakes her head. “I knew it from the lines in his face.”

Jason moves aside. “Come in.”

Emily walks into the room. The sandals fall from her fingers, land on the carpet with a soft thump. “Listen, you need to know something.”

He holds up a hand. “I don’t.” He looks away. “It’s all right.”

“No, no, you don’t understand.” She strides forward. “You need to listen to me. Listen. It’s important.” She leans into his face. “You need to leave. Did you tell George where you were staying?”

His eyebrows furrow. “George?”

“Yeah, yeah, George. His name his George.” Emily breathes hard. “He said it was Jason to fuck you up. To fuck _me_ up. Did you tell him?”

“Yeah, yeah. I mentioned it.” Jason shrugs. “He asked, said he was looking around for a nice place.”

“Oh…that’s bad for you.” Emily makes a meandering circle with her feet, shaking her head. “Really really bad.”

“What is going on here?”

“You need to leave. You need to get the hell out of here.” The words come fast, all in a rush, piling on top of each other. She looks at him. Her mouth presses into a trembling line. “He’s going to kill you.”

Jason’s eyebrows go up. “What?”

“Kill you! Kill you!” Frantic, Emily searches his eyes. “He’s going to _kill_ you!”

“Look.” Jason’s hands touch her shoulders. They glance her skin, sail off again. “You need to start at the beginning.” He rubs his palms together to warm them. “Come on.” He goes toward the bed, slow, keeping his eyes on her face. He touches her arm. “Come here.” He softens his voice. “Sit down. We’ll talk. It’ll be fine.”

“Jesus Christ, I am warning you here. I am trying to warn you. We don’t have time to talk, sitting down or otherwise. We need to go! _You_ need to go!”

“Emily. Emily.” He touches her face. “Please look at me.”

“I can’t. I won’t.” Her voice hollows itself out. “I’ll cry.” She stares off into space. “I’m incoherent when I cry, it’s a mess. I can’t.”

“Shhh. Come on. It’s okay.”

With the tip of a finger, he traces on her face the places where her tears would fall. Emily looks down. She draws in a shivering breath. His touch is soft, so soft, that it breaks her.

“It’s okay. Please. I want to see you,” he murmurs, bringing his brow close to hers. “I want to see your eyes. Tell me. Tell me. It’s okay. Come on. Look up. Yes. Like that. Shhh,” he sighs at the trembling of her chin. “That’s good.” He pulls back. “That’s good.”

Emily stands still, arms dangling at her sides. She doesn’t know how her face ended up in his hands. She looks up, bewildered.

“Now please,” he says. “Tell me what’s going on.”

She sniffles. Her eyebrows crease. He gathers her into his arms. He is tender, careful with her posture; he doesn’t want to break it. She folds into him.

“I like you.” She is lost, forlorn. The agony in her voice sends chills down her spine. “I don’t know why.”

He strokes her hair. “I like you too.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

With the fragility of her posture, the way she is in his arms, the sound of her own voice arouses her and disturbs her at the same time.

“Come here.” He murmurs the words into the skin of her forehead. “Lie down.” He rubs her back. “We’ll get you comfortable. Do you want something hot to drink?”

Emily shakes her head.

“Are you sure?”

She nods.

“Come on.”


	43. Making Love Out Of Nothing At All

It is here that her memory breaks.

It is not a cessation, a threshold crossed where her mind gives way to blackness; here is where the fractures begin, where they spread out and turn moments into facets.

In her weakness, he guides her to the bed. Here, in this stretch of time, Jason arranges her limbs, smoothes down her skirt, props her head on a plump white pillow.

The room is also white, walls like chalk and ivory carpet, blankets the color of antique silk. The light comes from bedside lamps and it fills the space.

Emily is on the bed. She is still. The room is a box of light.

Jason climbs onto the bed. She feels him displace the mattress. She smells him, an odor of warm skin, clean hair, Castile soap, something else. It is unique. It makes her think of smoke and the plant that burned to make the smoke; it is the two scents together, the leaf and its combustion. Thyme, maybe. Sage. Cilantro. Rosemary. Some bastard plant bred of all these things and broken, rubbed into skin; it is burned, the ashes dusted onto sweat. This is what she smells.

He moves close to her. He doesn’t touch her.

“Are you comfortable?” His voice changes, departs for territories unknown. There is breakdown at the edges of his words. “Are you cold?”

“No,” she sighs. She looks at the ceiling. It’s smooth.

The weight of his gaze is on her. He leans over. He lets a hand hover over her chest. “You got goosebumps.”

Maybe there is a blanket. She thinks there is, a throw of some kind woven out of soft yarn, and when she thinks of it, this blanket is the color of heather. Here is another thought. This one comes woven out of dimmed light and opened curtains, her bare legs under the covers, sliding in, the cotton cool and crisp against her toes. She sees the dark beyond the window.

One of these memories superimposes itself on the other.

Emily is filled with stillness. It rises up in her and touches the inside of her skin, fills her like water, suspends her within itself. Jason brings the stillness to her. He pours it over her.

He is there, taking up space. He owns the air. He moves over her, looks into her face. She opens her eyes. She sees that he is lost in her. His eyes are the eyes of a man looking out over a great distance. She touches the slant in his mouth, thinks of a compass. At the touch of her fingertip something comes to life in his top lip.

It awakens, spreads out across his face, moves like ripples, pushing something new into his eyes. She watches it, fascinated. Kingdoms rise and fall in the lines around his eyes. The space between his lips, his openness, beckons.

She remembers his hand hovering, putting out heat, this evidence of his existence falling onto her skin, warming her cheek milliseconds before the contact. She remembers it in slow motion: whorls in his fingers telegraph their secret messages, write them in synaptic code. The electricity, jumping from neuron to neuron, fills her.

He is there, in his eyes, filling them.

He kisses her neck. The sensation opens her mouth and releases her breath from her throat. His lips open new channels in her. She breathes into it, the feeling, so restless and soft, unfolding into a pressure in her cunt.

It crowds the other stuff out.

When the break happens he is kissing her.

There are other memories here, too. False ones, thoughts of how she wishes it had happened: swollen parts coming together, more wetness, urgent moaning.

Jason is kissing her.

The shape of his mouth is obscured by hers, there is the tight pleasure of skin touching skin. Their shirts are on the floor and she has a hand in his hair. It is short, bristly, like silk. The roots are warm. She kisses him, floats up into his kiss, his hands. This is a tender thing that shouldn’t be happening at all; he is taking advantage, she is giving it, she wants him. She accepts his tongue into her mouth and thinks of nothing.

Emily doesn’t close her eyes.

In the remembering, she will. In the remembering, she wants to keep this one thing to herself.

What happens is this:

In the midst, George has come into the room. He has gotten in somehow, broken the lock, walked in under the cover of what is happening between them.

He grabs Jason by the neck. He lifts him up off her. He is so limp, so melted into her, that at first he remains soft; he doesn’t move.

Emily becomes aware of the emptiness. Her eyes are closed, and for a moment she is confused by absence divorced from process: he does not roll over, he does not crawl away, there is no warning shift. There is only the absence of him, this subtraction of his weight, his smell, his skin.

Hands encircle Jason’s neck from behind and Emily doesn’t feel them.

She opens her eyes to a thud in the floor. It rockets through her, hums in the surface of her skin. She looks up, sees the ceiling, and it spins with the rapid shift in her perspective. A slug of adrenaline pounds into her blood. It wakes her up in time to see them struggle. The thud is the sound of Jason’s escape. He was held from behind, an arm locked around the neck, his face purple.

Now he’s not. George has his knife, it’s out and glittering in his hand. There are quick movements, chaos on a small scale, most of it held within the trembling strain of locked limbs. Emily sees blood. It is so red in the whiteness of the room, red and crazy, flying about in tiny droplets: there’s a cut somewhere.

The metallic scent of it drives them both mad.

All of this happens in panting silence.

From the back of Emily’s mind she feels Jason’s hands smoothing down her skirt. She watches him break out of George’s lock; she thinks about the tenderness living in his hands. He holds a gleaming object, some short heavy thing. It swings down. There are grunts. More blood flies. The object dressed in blood, an obelisk carved of black stone, it is the stone of the island. Jason is astride George.

What started life as an ornament will finish it as a murderer.

The obelisk, locked in his hand, comes down again and again. There is a crunch of bone, a sound like ice cracking, like green wood splintering.

Afterward, he is afraid.

Emily sits on the bed. She watches this fear leak into him, moving through his skin a sieve; she sees it tighten the muscles in his body until they tremble. His back is to her, his breath rapid.

The obelisk rolls out of weakened fingers: _thud_.

Everything happens so fast. A storm rages inside the room. It is locked inside their two bodies. One of them falls, one of them, and it is thunder.

Jason makes a harsh sound. From her place on the bed it sounds like crying, like it wants to be crying but doesn’t know where to begin.

Emily looks at George. His head is turned to one side, away from her. The landscape of his face is flattened. His arms, splayed out. In one of them is the knife. The presence of the blade, its position in George’s slack hand, allows her to see the cut in Jason’s flank.

It is long, curved, shallow. It has already started to clot.

It is the feeling she remembers. The richness of it, almost a flavor: the feeling, _Jason’s_ feeling, the weight of emotion smothering her. How she yearned for death. It held her down until he was lifted up, dragged into the corner of the room.

“It’s okay,” she says. “He’s dead.”

Jason turns. There’s blood in his hair. He looks at her, his eyes raw like a child’s, like a warrior’s. He is both of these things at once. Tear tracks streak the fine spray of blood on the right side of his face.

“It’s okay.” The feelings come back to her with a surge of dreadful strength. “It will be okay.”


End file.
